OVER,  HERE 


ETHEL  M.KJELLEY 


7 

• 


(4* 


Over  Here 

The  Story  of  A  War  Bride 

ETHEL  M.  KELLEY 


Author  of 
TURN  ABOUT  ELEANOR 


FRONTISPIECE  BY 

CHARLES  DANA  GIBSON 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS- MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright  1918 
The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 


PRESS  OF 

BRAUNWORTH    ft   CO. 

BOOK   MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN.   N.  y. 


TO 

L.  D. 


2136559 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I   November n 

II   December 30 

III  January 46 

IV  February 67 

V   March 84 

VI   April 100 

VII   May 117 

VIII  June .•'  .     .  137 

IX  July 153 

X  August 169 

XI   September 189 

XII   October 207 

XIII  November 222 

XIV  The  New  Year 242 

XV  Obadiah 255 


Over  Here 

CHAPTER  I 

NOVEMBER 

1AM  eighteen  years  old  to-day,  and  it's  very 
important.  I  am  now  grown  up.  Yesterday 
I  was  a  little  girl, — technically  as  they  say,  a 
little  girl.  To-day  I  am  anybody's  equal.  I 
could  go  down-town  to  a  restaurant  and  order 
tea  by  myself  if  I  wanted  to.  I  could  have  done 
that  before,  of  course,  but  I  was  rather  on  my 
honor  not  to.  The  difference  is  that  I  am  not 
going  to  be  on  my  honor  about  things  like  that 
any  more.  I  have  given  notice.  I  shall  do  the 
sort  of  thing  that  is  fitting  and  becoming  at 
my  age,  and  mother  and  father  will  have  to 
understand  that,  and  trust  me.  I  shall  be  both 
discreet  and  worldly.  Most  of  the  official  chap- 

ir 


12  OVER  HERE 

erons  are  nursing  the  French  wounded  anyhow, 
so  the  younger  set — I  am  now  the  younger  set — 
have  to  look  out  for  themselves  much  more  than 
they  had  to  formerly  when  the  world  was  not  at 
war. 

I  say  the  world,  but  we  are  not  at  war,  yet, 
thank  goodness,  and  I  don't  believe  we  are  going 
to  be.  I  wouldn't  have  voted  for  the  Democratic 
party  for  anything  this  fall,  even  if  I  had  been 
grown  up  then,  and  women  had  had  the  vote, 
but  I  was  never  so  thankful  in  my  life  as  when 
I  heard  that  Woodrow  Wilson  was  elected.  I 
know  he's  for  peace.  Of  course  war  is  a  very 
beautiful  and  magnificent  thing,  and  a  biologi- 
cal necessity  and  all  that,  and  the  deeds  the 
Ambulance  Corps  and  all  those  other  brave  boys 
of  American  extraction  are  doing  are  so  wonder- 
ful that  I  for  one  wouldn't  have  missed  knowing 
about  them  for  anything;  still  when  you  come 
right  down  to  it  war  is  what  Sherman  said  it 
was  a  long  time  ago — simply  Hades. 

I  wouldn't  like  to  have  anybody  that  I  know 
well  go  to  war.  I've  two  cousins  who  are  nice 


NOVEMBER  13 

stalwart  boys  of  twenty-one  and  twenty-three, 
respectively,  a  first  and  a  second  cousin.  I  like 
the  second  cousin  best,  for  he  is  very  handsome, 
and  has  one  of  those  soft  thick  mustaches  that 
last  for  about  an  inch  and  then  are  shaved  right 
close  up  to.  I  think  they  are  very  fascinating-, 
but  he — Roland — is  too  affectionate  by  nature. 
The  other  one,  George,  is  not  affectionate  at  all, 
and  not  even  interesting.  Then  I  know  a  man 
who  was  at  Plattsburg  last  year.  He  is  twenty- 
seven,  and  looks  perfectly  stunning  in  his  uni- 
form, but  he  is  very  grown  up,  and  treats  me  as 
if  I  were  indeed  a  small  kid.  He  reads  Kipling 
to  me,  though. 

Among  my  birthday  presents  was  my  aunt's 
five  dollars.  She  has  given  me  five  dollars  on 
my  birthday  ever  since  the  year  one.  (Joke.)  I 
think  I  shall  buy  a  Plattsburg  Manual  with  it  and 
also  I  think  that  I  shall  buy  about  five  pounds  of 
chocolate  almonds.  I  don't  care  so  much  for 
them,  but  Tommy,  that's  my  twenty-seven-year- 
old  friend,  is  simply  crazy  about  them.  Soldiers, 
of  course,  are  trained,  among  other  things,  to  eat 


I4  OVER  HERE 

and  sustain  themselves  on  chocolate,  so  in  a  way 
it's  a  service  to  my  country  to  spend  a  part  of 
my  birthday  money  like  that  I  do  want  to  serve 
my  country.  I  do  want  the  men  I  know  to  be 
soldiers  and  in  a  state  of  preparedness  in  their 
souls  as  well  as  their  bodies.  There  is  nothing1 
more  to  be  deplored  than  cowardice,  and  if  any 
man  I  knew — Tommy  especially — had  even  a 
touch  of  it  I  think  I  should  cry  my  eyes  out  so 
they'd  stay  out,  and  I  could  never  get  them  back 
in  again;  but  if  only  Wilson  or  even  William 
Jennings  Bryan — whom  I  otherwise  don't  admire 
in  any  way  on  account  of  his  making  himself  so 
ridiculous  about  grape  juice  and  calling  his  wife 
mama  and  all  that — will  keep  us  from  getting 
involved  in  this  horrid  world-struggle, — that's  all 
I  personally  ask.  I  am  patriotic,  but  I  hope  I 
shan't  have  to  suffer  for  it,  or  have  those  I  love 
in  any  way,  suffer. 

Eighteen  years  old;  except  for  this  small 
cloud  of  possibility,  I  am  the  happiest  girl  in 
the  world.  It  is  beautiful  to  be  eighteen,  and 
have  everybody  love  one,  and  have  one's  allow- 


NOVEMBER  15 

ance  increased  to  fifty  dollars  a  month.  I  am 
very  tall  and  slender  and  I  need  to  be  able  to  buy 
expensive  drapy  clothes,  that  look  as  if  you  had 
been  stood  up  in  a  musical  comedy  and  the  chorus 
had  pinned  them  all  on  you  while  the  audience 
waited  and  the  orchestra  played  and  sang.  The 
chorus  sang,  I  mean.  My  face  is  not  very  much 
to  look  at.  My  features  are  little  and  my  nose 
has  a  small  but  unmistakable  hump  in  it,  which 
may  have  been  admired  on  ladies  of  the  Roman 
Empire  but  looks  the  reverse  of  chic  when  it 
adorns  a  fin  de  siecle  countenance.  My  hair  again 
is  slightly  auburn,  not  startlingly  so,  but  tinted 
that  way,  so  I  need  to  dress  myself  very  carefully 
in  order  to  create  the  kind  of  impression  I  want 
Eighteen  to-day.  I  ought  to  put  something 
down  about  nature  I  suppose,  or  at  least,  it  being 
winter — November,  1916,  to  be  exact — the  way 
I  feel  when  I  get  on  my  horse  and  trot  about  in 
the  park,  or  ride  on  top  of  a  bus.  I  ought  to 
set  down  some  truly  spiritual  feelings  about 
emerging  into  womanhood  from  girlhood.  I'm 
crazy  about  it,  but  otherwise  I  don't  altogether 


16  OVER  HERE 

know  what  I  do  feel.  I  love  to  read  poetry,  but 
I  hate  to  write  anything  that  sounds  even  the 
least  bit  like  it.  When  anybody  says  anything 
about  it  being  a  great  big  wonderful  world  I 
always  think  of  that  picture  of  the  chicken  hatch- 
ing out  of  its  shell.  It  is  a  great  bi'g  wonderful 
world,  and  I  am  what  my  cousin  Roland  disre- 
spectfully calls  a  chicken,  nay,  even  a  squab,  but 
that  seems  somehow  to  be  all  there  is  to  say  on 
the  subject. 

Also,  I  ought  to  say  something  about  my 
mother,  and  here  again  I  pause.  My  mother  is 
perfectly  all  right.  She's  an  awfully  good-looking 
person,  and  for  her  type  she  certainly  dresses 
slickly.  I  tell  her  practically  everything, — and 
when  I  say  practically  I  mean  at  least,  more  than 
I  tell  any  one  else.  What  is  home  without  a 
rubber  plant  and  a  mother  ?  Mother  is  lovely, — 
that's  all.  And  every  girl  I  know  thinks  so. 

Father  is  a  dear,  too.  He  is  youngish  like 
mother,  and  perfectly  stunning  to  go  anywhere 
with.  Mostly  he  is  too  tired  to  go  out,  but  I 
would  rather  have  him  along  as  far  as  sheer 


NOVEMBER  17 

looks  are  concerned  than  any  boy  or  man  I  know. 
His  hair  is  white  at  the  temples,  and  grades  up 
to  jet  black  on  the  top  of  his  head  which  makes 
him  look  very  elegant  and  distinguished.  He  is 
not  very  rich,  poor  daddy,  and  I  think  it  worries 
him  a  good  deal  to  think  that  I  can't  have  a 
send-off  like  some  of  the  girls  I  know,  who  have 
houses  and  limousines  and  coming-out  balls  in- 
stead of  living  in  an  apartment  on  Central  Park 
with  one  maid  and  a  half  the  way  we  do,  and  a 
taxicab  account  that  I'm  not  supposed  to  use 
except  when  it  rains  or  I'm-  dressed  for  a  party. 
I  think  it  distresses  a  business  man  after  a 
while  just  to  have  to  grub  along  and  support  a 
family  without  getting  rich  or  famous  or  being 
anybody  specially  well  known.  When  father  was 
young  he  went  to  Uruguay  or  Paraguay  or  some 
of  those  countries  in  the  South  Sea  Islands  and 
had  a  wonderful  time  selling  rubber  stock  and 
other  exciting  things  like  a  hero  in  a  Saturday 
Evening  Post  story.  Now  all  he  does  is  to  worry 
for  fear  that  the  business  he  has  will  be  shot  to 
pieces  under  him.  I  don't  think  it  ever  will,  but 


i8  OVER  HERE 

there  he  is  worrying  about  it  most  of  the  time. 
I  am  his  only  daughter,  so  I  know.  Only  daugh- 
ters are  apt  to  look  and  act  like  their  fathers, 
and  to  sympathize  with  them.  It  is  the  law  of 
heredity.  Mother  inherits  nothing  from  him  of 
course,  and  her  attitude  toward  such  things  is 
always  very  sweet,  but  she  sees  them  from  a 
Christian  Science  or  why  worry,  it  will  all  come 
out  in  the  wash  sort  of  angle.  Mother  is — well, 
not  fat — but  rather  plumpishly  inclined,  which 
you'd  hardly  guess  when  she's  corseted  properly, 
and  being  mother  she's  always  corseted  proper- 
ly;— but  father  and  I  are  the  thi'n  and  agitated 
types. 

The  strangest  thing  about  men  and  women 
respectively,  though,  is  the  difference  in  the  kinds 
of  things  they  get  worked  up  over.  I  am  very 
sensitive  in  a  way,  and  father  is  very  sensitive. 
We  both  get  frantically  excited  at  times,  but  never 
at  the  same  sort  of  times.  Father,  for  instance, 
is  in  a  dreadful  state  about  this  country.  He 
says  it  is  going  to  the  dogs  as  fast  as  it  can  go, — 
that  we're  a  nation  of  four  flushers  and  pikers. 


NOVEMBER  19 

He  says  we  are  just  now  in  the  most  cowardly 
position  any  nation  could  be  in,  smugly  assuring 
ourselves  that  this  big  struggle  is  none  of  our 
business,  and  that  we  are  too  proud  to  fight,  be- 
cause we  regard  our  own  convenience  as  the 
thing  of  paramount  importance.  He  says  the 
truth  is  we  feel  ourselves  too  good  to  fight — too 
superior,  and  that  we  gas  and  windbag  and  send 
notes — the  language  is  his,  not  mine — for  the 
same  reason  that  any  individual  with  a  streak  of 
yellow  a  yard  wide,  talks  instead  of  acts — looks 
on  at  the  shedding  of  blood  instead  of  mixing  in 
with  the  fray. 

Father  gets  perfectly  melodramatic  about  this. 
Ever  since  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  he  has 
behaved  like  a  man  who  has  lost  his  best  friend 
or  friends,  and  there  wasn't  a  soul  on  board  that 
he  knew  personally.  Of  course,  I  felt  that  devas- 
tating tragedy  deeply  at  the  time  it  happened, 
there  were  so  many  young  girls  on  board  that 
might  have  had  many  of  the  same  ambitions  and 
emotions  that  I  have,  and  who  were  or  were  not 
saved  from  an  inky  grave  in  the  cold  black 


20  OVER  HERE 

waters;  but  it  was  nearly  six  months  ago,  and  I 
don't  think  you  can  keep  looking  backward  all 
the  time  at  anything  so  grim,  but  father  is  like 
Lot's  wife.  He'll  freeze  looking  over  his 
shoulder,  I  tell  him. 

Privately  I  don't  blame  the  Administration.  I 
wouldn't  tell  father  that.  He'd  take  it  to  heart; 
but  President  Wilson  has  either  got  to  send  notes 
all  the  time,  or  fight.  Every  time  a  submarine 
sinks  anything  of  ours  we  might  just  as  well  write 
the  Germans  about  it  as  anything  else.  There  is 
graft  everywhere.  Every  nation  is  looking  out 
for  the  main  chance  a  good  part  of  the  time. 
It  isn't  as  if  the  Allies  had  always  been  right  in 
everything  they  undertook.  They  haven't.  The 
Germans,  of  course,  have  always  been  wrong, 
they  never  had  any  decency  of  any  kind,  but  the 
other  races  have  fought  wars  of  conquest  and 
aggrandizement  and  all  that.  Look  at  England 
and  her  colonies  and  the  Irish  question.  I  don't 
know  so  much  about  them,  but  I  know  that  there 
has  been  quite  a  lot  of  scandal  about  her  behavior. 
Also  the  French  are  very  mean,  I've  been  told, 


NOVEMBER  21 

and  terribly  on  the  make.  Those  concierges  they 
have  over  there  rob  you  right  and  left  if  you  don't 
allow  them  to  extort  tips  and  other  money  from 
you.  Eileen  Douglas  lived  in  Paris  for  years 
and  she  knows  all  there  is  to  know  from  the  in- 
side. In  fact  there's  a  lot  to  be  said  for  America's 
keeping  right  on  being  at  peace  with  the  world. 
When  you  come  right  down  to  it,  American  citi- 
zens ought  not  to  travel  on  boats  at  all  now  that 
the  Germans  have  made  it  impossible  to  do  so 
without  these  tragic  results. 

It  is  only  about  Belgium  that  I  mind.  I  can 
pick  flaws  in  the  Allies,  but  I  can't  say  anything 
derogatory  about  Belgium.  I  had  a  little  sister 
that  died  before  I  was  born,  and  while  I  can't 
say  that  I  feel  specially  attracted  to  her — she  real- 
ly was  the  flower  of  the  family  with  all  the  angelic 
virtues  and  good  looks — still  there  is  never  any 
time  when  I  could  say  anything  against  her.  She 
was  my  little  sister,  and  she  died.  Well,  Bel- 
gium— it's  funny  how  some  thoughts  can  make 
you  choke  right  up.  I've  heard  quite  a  lot  about 
Belgium,  perhaps  that's  the  reason. 


22  OVER  HERE 

Tommy  doesn't  take  father's  view  of  any- 
thing exactly.  He  is  quite  a  cheerful  person.  He 
doesn't  worry  about  anything  but  Preparedness, 
He  says  that  our  getting  ready  to  fight  is  the 
principal  thing,  that  as  soon  as  our  boys  learn 
to  handle  a  gun  they'll  use  it  of  spontaneous  com- 
bustion if  they  don't  get  a  chance  any  other  way. 
He  thinks  the  government  is  sort  of  kidding 
everybody  along  in  a  kind  of  poky  way  that  makes 
you  mad,  but  he  believes  that  it  is  marking  time 
with  an  object  in  view.  He's  a  lawyer  really,  but 
the  law  is  rather  lost  sight  of  in  his  interest  in 
all  these  military  things.  He  is  teaching  me  set- 
ting-up exercises.  There  is  a  dandy  one  where 
you  spread  your  feet  wide  apart  and  touch  the 
floor  first  with  the  fingers  of  one  hand  and  then 
the  other.  I  do  it  forty  times  every  night. 

1  am  also  doing  rifle  practise  in  a  shooting 
gallery  he  takes  me  to.  I  am  going  into  the  Red 
Cross  to  learn  a  few  little  things  like  First  Aid 
and  the  care  of  other  wounds,  and  making  band- 
ages and  slings.  I  think  it  is  no  more  than  right 
that  a  girl  should  know  these  details.  Whatever 


NOVEMBER  23 

else  I  do  or  don't  believe  in  I  believe  in  Mili- 
tarism. 

Last  night  we  had  Tommy  to  dinner — invited 
specially  by  me  on  account  of  its  going  to  be  my 
birthday  to-day,  and  I  being  perfectly  sure  that 
he  would  forget  it.  I  thought  I  would  feel  pretty 
low  about  it  when  he  did  forget,  though  I  knew 
he  was  going  to.  So  I  had  him  to  dinner  the 
night  before  to  take  the  edge  off,  feeling  that 
if  I  had  had  a  whole  evening  of  him  beforehand 
I  wouldn't  care  so  much.  Father  and  he  talked 
their  heads  off  about  things  like  the  removal  of 
General  Woods,  and  whether  or  not  Tammany 
would  ever  get  its  head  above  water,  and  Platts- 
burg,  and  those  everlasting  notes. 

Mother  was  wearing  her  pale  gray  charmeuse 
made  over  for  a  home  dinner  dress,  with  coral 
earrings.  Nobody  knows  how  I  want  those  ear- 
rings, but  I  won't  ask  mother  for  them  because 
she'd  give  them  to  me,  or  else  she'd  ever  after 
apologize  to  me  whenever  she  put  them  on,  and  I 
don't  think  it's  fair  to  get  them  away  from  her 
by  those  means.  If  she  didn't  like  them  so  much, 


24  OVER  HERE 

I  would  though.  The  greatest  good  to  the  great- 
est number  is  my  motto.  I  wore  my  baby  blue 
chiffon  with  pink  rose-buds. 

Miss  Walerstein,  my  aunt's  ex-sub  governess, 
an  excellent  woman  who  had  come  in  from  the 
country  at  great  inconvenience  to  herself  and  us, 
to  see  mother,  had  also  been  asked  to  stay.  We 
tried  to  keep  off  the  subject  of  the  war  for  her 
sake, — mother  and  I  did.  She  has  a  father  and 
uncles  in  Germany,  and  also  two  brothers  in  the 
German  army,  but  I  think  she  is  truly  devoted  to 
our  family — too  truly  I  feel  sometimes.  Think- 
ing she  might  be  getting  uneasy  in  some  way  at 
father's  and  Tommy's  festive  conversation  about 
the  shock  the  British  got  and  the  new  awakening 
over  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  I  began  to  ask  her 
about  her  own  country  and  if  it  was  true  that 
more  children  committed  suicide  there  than  in 
any  country  in  the  world.  She  said  it  was  a 
wicked  lie.  Then  she  smiled  more  graciously  and 
said  that  only  some  Americans  believed  the  worst 
of  Germany,  that  we  by  and  large  were  her 


NOVEMBER  25 

friends  among-  the  ravening  wolves  that  beset  her. 
She  said  Germany  was  clean  and  beautiful,  and 
that  there  were  wise  good  rules  for  everything 
there,  and  people  always  knew  how  to  behave. 

"It  must  have  been  very  hard  for  you,  Frau- 
lein,  to  adjust  yourself  to  our  manners  and 
customs,"  mother  said  sweetly  to  her. 

"It  is  so.  You  Americans  have  no  rules  of 
conduct.  You  are  like  cooks  who  have  no  recipes 
for  anything.  Sometimes  your  cooking  turns  out 
well,  and  again — not." 

"The  French  are  the  best  cooks  in  the  world," 
I  said  thoughtlessly ;  and  then  having  gained  noth- 
ing by  my  well-meant  efforts  toward  our  espe- 
cially unwanted  guest,  I  turned  my  attention  to 
Tommy,  and  said  anything  that  came  into  my 
head  whenever  I  could  find  a  little  loophole  in 
the  conversation. 

Very  much  later  I  got  Tommy  into  my  den  on 
the  pretext  of  showing  him  some  snap-shots. 
Mother  stayed  and  talked  to  Fraulein,  and  father 
had  a  business  appointment.  No  one  had  even 


26  OVER  HERE 

chanced  to  mention  before  Tommy  that  to-mor- 
row— to-day — was  going  to  be  my  natal  day.  I 
had  rather  depended  on  mother,  at  least,  to  say : 

"You  ought  to  have  waited  till  to-morrow 
night,  Tommy,  or  else  come  again  then.  It's 
Beth's  birthday,  you  know."  But  she  didn't. 

We  had  a  long,  long  talk  about  infantry  drill 
and  field  firing.  I  am  intensely  interested,  of 
course,  in  everything  that  Tommy  ever  talks 
about,  but  here  and  there  my  mind  would  wander 
to  the  way  I  want  my  blue  panne  velvet  dancing 
frock,  now  in  the  hands  of  the  six-dollar-a-day 
seamstress,  to  set  across  the  shoulders,  and  also 
to  the  very  earnest  look  Tommy  gets  around  his 
eyes  when  he  is  engrossed  in  any  subject.  I  love 
for  a  man  to  have  pink  fresh-looking  skin,  and 
then  to  get  sunburned  to  the  very  top  of  his  collar, 
and  below  the  hat  line. 

"Beth,  are  you  listening?"  he  asked  me  sud- 
denly. 

"I'm  not  only  listening,  but  I  heard  what  you 
said,"  I  replied  glibly,  and  I  told  him  what  it  was. 

"Sometimes  you  get  me  guessing,  Beth,"  he 


NOVEMBER  27 

said.  "You  know  I've  always  thought  you  were 
the  only  girl  I  ever  knew  who  was  a  real  sport 
for  sport's  sake." 

"To  what  department  of  life  do  you  refer?" 
I  said  to  gain  a  little  time. 

"The  sporting  goods  department,"  he  said 
gravely;  "are  you  really  interested  in  the  things 
I  tell  you  about,  or  do  you  kid  me  along  from  time 
to  time  like  any  other  girl?" 

"I  am  really  interested  in  what  you  talk 
about,  Tommy,"  I  said. 

"I  know  a  darn  sight  too  much  and  too  little 
about  women,"  he  mused  quite  abstractedly.  "I'm 
pretty  fond  of  you,  Baby." 

"You  mean  you  don't  know  whether  I'm 
always  sincere  or  not,"  I  said.  My  feelings  were 
very  mixed.  I  didn't  want  to  represent  myself 
to  him  as  anything  that  I  wasn't,  nor  did  I  want 
to  tell  him  the  whole  truth  about  my  convictions 
and  non-convictions.  "Tommy,"  I  added  to  him 
with  all  the  earnestness  at  my  command,  "no 
girl  is." 

Our  serious  conversation  was  interrupted  by 


28  OVER  HERE 

his  whoops  and  peals  of  laughter  when  I  said  this. 
Usually  I  know  it  when  I  have  said  anything 
funny,  but  this  time  I  didn't. 

"The  thing  I  want  most  in  the  world,"  he 
said  quite  a  little  bit  later,  "is  sweetness  and  sin- 
cerity and  at  least  a  perfectly  good  sporting 
instinct  all  wrapped  up  in  one  piece  of  goods — 
preferably  millinery.  A  burnt  child  dreads  the 
fire,  you  know.  I  was  burnt  once." 

I  couldn't  say  anything,  so  I  didn't.  Tommy 
was  engaged  to  a  perfectly  horrible  woman  of 
twenty-nine  once  that  married  a  multi-millionaire 
of  her  own  accord — when  she  might  have  had 
Tommy. 

"I'm  terribly  afraid  of  getting  prejudiced  in 
favor  of  some — some — " 

"Skirt?"  I  put  in  helpfully.  When  Tommy 
begins  to  talk  this  way  he  frightens  me  dread- 
fully. If  his  mind  is  beginning  to  run  on  women 
again  I  don't  want  to  know  it. 

"Some  skirt — before  I've  had  a  chance  to  ap- 
praise it  calmly  and  carefully  enough." 

Soon  after  this  he  went  home.    "What  I  want 


NOVEMBER  29 

most  in  the  world, — "  that  rather  sticks  in  my 
crop. 

What  /  wanted,  did  want,  and  am  wanting 
now,  most  in  the  world,  is  a  birthday  present  from 
Tommy. 


CHAPTER  II 

DECEMBER 

DECEMBER  is  a  sort  of  good  feeling  month. 
I  like  cold  weather  and  the  tingling  feeling 
you  have  as  if  you  had  had  a  cold  shower  and 
an  alcohol  rub  every  half -hour  all  day.  All  the 
setting-up  exercises  I  do  make  me  feel  fine,  too. 
I'd  like  to  try  some  Indian  wrestling  some  time, 
but  I  can't  with  a  boy,  and  I  don't  know  any  girl 
who  would  be  interested. 

Well,  Christmas  is  coming  on  apace.  New 
York  is  just  simply  crammed  with  Allied  Ba- 
zaars and  Fairs  and  Benefits.  I've  sold  tickets 
by  the  carload,  danced  in  two  charity  shows  at 
the  Plaza,  and  helped  run  a  flower  booth  at  the 
Grand  Central  Palace  for  the  Serbian  relief.  I've 
dressed  a  French  wounded  doll,  addressed  a  lot 
of  Poet's  Ambulance  envelopes,  and  Red  Crossed 
until  I  fairly  exhale  lint,  and  knit  and  purl  in  my 

30 


DECEMBER  31 

sleep  all  night  long.  I  dream  I  am  in  the  woods, 
going  fishing  with  Tommy,  and  trying  to  cast  my 
line  and  knit  at  the  same  time;  or  skate  and 
knit,  or  fox-trot. 

Last  night  I  dreamed  that  I  was  trying  to 
write  a  love-letter  and  knit.  I  had  to  get  to  the 
end  of  my  row  before  I  could  put  in  an  endear- 
ment, and  every  time  I  dropped  a  stitch  a  big  blot 
would  come  on  the  paper.  I  seemed  to  be  begging 
somebody  not  to  do  something.  I  didn't  know 
who  at  first,  but  it  turned  out  later  to  be  Tommy, 
who  was  thinking  of  going  to  France  with  ten 
Red  Cross  nurses.  I  began  to  cry  wildly,  and 
Tommy  said,  "Darling,  you  shouldn't  be  writing 
a  love-letter  to  me  while  I'm  commandeering 
these  women."  Then  I  woke  up.  Anyway  he 
called  me  "darling."  Aren't  dreams  funny 
things  ? 

The  air  is  full  of  war  stuff,  but  it  isn't  our 
war.  It's  their  war.  The  campaign  at  Verdun 
is  rather  getting  on  my  nerves.  The  battle  of  the 
Somme  is  on  everybody's  lips.  I  hate  the  morn- 
ing papers  nowadays.  All  the  murder  cases  on 


32  OVER  HERE 

the  second  page,  and  all  the  fashion  notes 
dubiously  headed  "American  Dressmakers  Vie 
with  Parisians.  No  Paris  Gowns  for  American 
Misses,"  and  things  like  that.  I  think  I  could 
get  up  more  heart  interest  in  the  war  if  we  could 
publish  interviews  from  the  trenches.  About  all 
the  news  we  get  is  hearsay,  scraps  of  letters  from 
those  who  are  fortunate  enough  to  have  relatives 
at  the  front.  I  mean  fortunate  from  a  news 
standpoint. 

I  know  a  Canadian  girl,  Marcella  Harcourt, 
whose  brother,  and  I  strongly  suspect  her  sweet- 
heart, went  over  with  that  first  contingent  of 
Canadians.  She  says  her  brother  is  six  feet  tall 
and  very  good-looking  and  all  the  girls  are  crazy 
about  him.  He  writes  to  her  in  the  code  they 
used  when  they  were  children.  He  does  a  whole 
letter  of  commonplace  stuff  to  get  by  the  censor 
and  every  fifth  word  is  code;  but  she  says  that 
he  works  so  hard  to  get  the  code  message  in, 
that  the  body  part  of  his  letters  is  not  very  inter- 
esting, and  when  they  spell  out  the  important 
things  it  is  only  "Ten  miles  east  of  where  we  were 


DECEMBER  33 

when  we  first  went  in,"  and  she  was  able  to  guess 
that  anyway  from  other  things  about  the  letter. 
She  doesn't  say  much  of  anything  about  the 
sweetheart,  but  I  hope  his  letters  are  more  satis- 
fying. She  thinks  she  is  lucky  that  her  brother 
and  this  friend — that's  the  way  she  speaks  of  him, 
but  I  can  tell — are  still  alive  to  tell  the  tale.  When 
the  Canadians  first  went  over  I  guess  they  were 
moved  right  up  to  the  front  and  practically  sacri- 
ficed. How  can  such  things  be?  I  am  awfully 
glad  that  they  don't  seem  any  realer  to  me.  I'd 
hate  to  have  the  war  really  affect  me  so  I'd  lose 
my  appetite  or  anything.  Thank  goodness  there 
are  still  ice-cream  sodas  and  peach  marshmellow 
sundaes  in  the  world ! 

Yesterday  I  had  a  whole  lovely  afternoon 
rattling  around  the  town  with  Tommy.  He  was 
giving  himself  a  few  hours  off  for  rest  and 
relaxation  and  to  buy  Christmas  presents.  He 
wanted  my  advice  about  getting  a  present  for  a 
girl.  That  was  rather  a  facer,  but  I  don't  think 
he  cares  so  very  much  about  her.  He  said  the 
girl  wasn't  so  much  the  point,  but  the  present 


34  OVER  HERE 

was.  That  it  had  to  be  nice  and  what  she  wanted, 
but  that  she  herself  needn't  enter  into  the  con- 
versation in  any  way  that  would  be  embarrassing 
to  either  of  us. 

"Isn't  she  a  nice  girl  then,  Tommy?"  I  man- 
aged to  ask. 

"A  very  nice  girl,  but  a  trifle  hypothetical," — I 
can't  seem  to  remember  to  look  up  hypothetical, 
much  as  I  desire  to  figure  out  his  exact  meaning — 
"but  you're  a  nice  girl,  too,  and  here  we  are  walk- 
ing down  the  avenue  together.  Let's  talk  about 
that" 

Fifth  Avenue  was  simply  great.  It  was 
swarming  and  crawling  with  smart  motors,  and 
the  air  was  crisp  and  cool.  There  was  lots  of 
color  around,  in  the  shop-windows  and  people's 
clothes.  Just  because  dye  stuffs  are  so  expensive 
and  hard  to  get,  and  everybody  in  London  and 
Paris  has  gone  into  khaki-color  and  sackcloth 
color,  we  seem  to  be  reveling  in  all  the  flashing, 
flaming  shades  there  are.  I  don't  care.  I  love 
it.  I'm  crazy  for  a  Prussian  blue  velvet  trimmed 
with  squirrel,  made  in  that  straight  military  way. 


DECEMBER  35 

We  went  into  several  different  jewelers'  shops, 
and  finally  chose  a  jade  pendant  for  that  disgust- 
ing girl — whoever  she  is.  For  one  minute  or  so 
I  was  about  to  get  her  the  ugliest  thing  I  could 
find  in  New  York  City.  I  made  the  plan  of  going 
from  one  store  to  another  until  I  had  picked  out 
the  very  worst  pendant  our  little  old  town  could 
boast.  Then  I  thought  better  of  it.  Tommy 
trusted  me.  I  chose  something  I  coveted  myself. 
I  hope  it  twists  around  her  horrid  throat  and 
chokes  her  some  night!  No,  I  don't.  She's 
Tommy's  friend,  anyway. 

Still  no  barest  hint  was  made  of  any  present 
for  me. 

I  told  Tommy  that  Lester  Price  sent  me  roses 
on  my  birthday.  I  didn't  mean  to,  because  it 
doesn't  do  any  good  to  sneak  anything  in  about 
the  birthday  now,  and  I  don't  want  to  do  any- 
thing remotely  like  hinting,  but  I  some  way 
blurted  it  out,  and  got  him  started  on  the  subject. 

"Why  didn't  I  know  about  the  birthday?" 

"You  did,"  I  said,  "but  you  forgot,— 
Tommy." 


36  OVER  HERE 

"And  Lester  Price  remembered  ?  Well,  I  dare 
say  that  was  as  it  should  be.  You  wouldn't  want 
roses  from  an  old  creature  like  me." 

I  couldn't  say  I  would  have  wanted  them  when 
he  hadn't  sent  me  any.  That  would  have  been 
sort  of  reproachful  and  I-told-you-so-ish.  So  I 
didn't  say  anything. 

"Sometimes  you  make  me  feel  very  old,  Beth, 
when  you  put  me  in  my  place  with  one  of  your 
•impressive  silences." 

"Do  I?"  I  said. 

Mother  lets  me  have  tea  with  Tommy,  but 
never  with  any  of  the  boys  unless  we're  chap- 
eroned. We  went  to  the  Waldorf,  and  I  had 
chocolate  and  pastry  and  petit  fours,  which  is  a 
sort  of  pastry  too.  Tommy  had  milk  punch,  and 
smoked,  and  looked  at  me,  and  smiled.  It  was  an 
elegant  lark,  and  we  stayed  there  for  hours.  I 
love  tea,  and  I'm  crazy  about  the  Waldorf,  though 
mother  always  goes  to  Sherry's. 

We  went  home  through  the  park  in  a  hansom 
cab.  It  was  a  slick  ride.  All  the  trees  were  snow- 
laden,  and  the  sky  that  cold  flushed  pink  it  gets 


DECEMBER  37 

just  at  twilight.  "The  road  was  a  ribbon  of — " 
something,  I  don't  know  how  the  old  poem  goes. 
Our  horse's  hoofs  rang  sharply,  tumty-umpty- 
umpty-umph.  Then  the  lights  began  to  twinkle 
out.  Tommy  put  his  arm  along  the  cushion  at 
my  back.  I  don't  see  how  anybody  tells  anybody 
else  the  things  that  are  in  their  souls.  I  never 
should  be  able  to.  The  more  I  want  what  I  want, 
or  the  more  I  think  what  I  think — the  less  I  am 
able  to  mention  it  in  any  way  at  all.  It  was  so 
beautiful  in  the  park  the  tears  came  into  my  eyes, 
but  they  stuck  in  my  veil  and  froze  there  and 
nobody  knew  the  difference. 

"Beth,"  Tommy  said,  "do  you  like  this  ?" 

"Do  you  like  this,  Tommy?"  I  said. 

He  said  he  did. 

"Let's  not  be  so  quiet,"  I  said,  because  it  rather 
frightens  me  to  be  so  quiet  with  Tommy.  "Tell 
me  about  Governor's  Island  and  what  you're  do- 
ing there  now.  I  shouldn't  think  you'd  want  to 
study  and  drill  trying  to  get  an  officer's  com- 
mission when  there  isn't  going  to  be  any  war  to 
be  an  officer  in." 


38  OVER  HERE 

"I'm  not  so  sure  of  that." 

"You've  promised  you  won't  go  over  with  the 
Canadians  or  the  Ambulance." 

"Curiously  enough,  I  don't  care  much  about 
adopting  this  war  from  the  outside.  When  I 
fight  I  want  to  fight  as  an  American  with  Amer- 
icans. There's  time  enough.  Meanwhile  I'd  like 
to  be  ready  when  the  chance  came.  If  it  doesn't 
come — there's  no  harm  done." 

There  certainly  is  no  harm  done  to  me  if  it 
doesn't  come,  and  it  won't — it  won't.  I'm  pretty 
lucky. 

When  I  got  home  Lester  Price  was  there  and 
Dolly  Grainger.  Dolly  is  a  sweet  little  thing — 
born  the  same  year  that  I  was  but  aged  about 
two, — though  when  it  is  a  question  of  a  boy  she 
grows  up  rather  rapidly  in  a  certain  way.  What 
I  mean  is  that  she  is  catty  but  not  developed. 
Eileen  Douglas  is  my  most  intimate  friend,  and 
she  is  thoroughly  trustworthy  and  never  copies 
one's  hats  or  ideas  without  being  invited  to  do 
so  especially.  Dolly  has  her  eyes  on  Lester,  whose 
father  owns  a  locomotive  company  and  has  made 


DECEMBER  39 

millions  out  of  the  Allies  in  addition  to  the  mil- 
lions he  had  before.  We  call  Lester  the  multi? 
billionaire,  which  makes  him  furious,  as  he  is  a 
socialist  himself  and  is  going  to  live  in  Green- 
wich Village  when  he  is  grown,  wind  and  mother 
permitting,  as  Tommy  says, — which  they  won't. 
Dolly  had  to  go  home  early  and  dress  for 
dinner,  but  she  couldn't  get  Lester  to  do  more 
than  to  let  her  out  of  the  door.  I  must  say  I  ad- 
mired her  methods,  and  if  I  had  been  Lester  I 
don't  see  how  I  could  have  resisted  them ;  but  he 
did,  and  came  back  and  settled  down  before  the 
fire  with  me.  Father  says  he  can't  see  how  it  was 
that  Fate  let  him  have  a  real  fireplace, — that  a 
gas  log  is  just  about  the  degree  and  kind  of  a 
thing  that  has  always  been  dealt  out  to  him.  On 
the  other  hand,  mother  wouldn't  have  a  gas  log, 
and  when  there  is  something  in  this  world  that 
she  won't  touch  with  a  ten- foot  pole  she  never 
has  to,  some  way.  I  am  like  my  father  in  so  many 
ways  that  I  am  bound  and  determined  not  to  be 
like  him  in  this.  Dolly  Grainger  will  never  do 
anything  or  go  through  anything  that  makes  her 


40  OVER  HERE 

disagreeably  uncomfortable.  It  is  written  all  over 
her  that  she  won't.  In  a  different  kind  of  way 
mother  won't  either.  Father  has  to,  and  will. 
Shall  I,  I  wonder?  If  there  is  anything  in  will 
power, — No!  No!  No! 

Lester  wanted  to  talk  about  his  ideas  of  being 
a  socialist  and  a  pacifist.  He  said  he  was  a  mili- 
tant pacifist  and  wanted  to  fight  the  war  idea  with 
his  own  spirit.  He  said  he  was  tired  of  being 
pampered  and  having  his  own  town  car  when  the 
children  were  starving  in  the  street,  and  even 
beautiful  and  high-spirited  girls  like  me — that's 
the  way  he  talks — had  to  plow  through  the  streets 
on  foot. 

"The  children  don't  starve  in  the  streets,"  I 
said.  "Police  Commissioner  Woods  is  too  much 
on  the  job  for  that ;  and  I'd  rather  ride  in  a  han- 
som cab  than  all  the  landaulets  and  cabriolets  on 
earth — that  is,  when  it's  pleasant  weather." 

"Yes,"  Lester  agreed,  "but  so  much  of  the 
time  it  isn't  pleasant  weather  in  winter." 

"Thank  you  for  your  roses,"  I  said.  "I  like 
the  coffee-colored  ones  almost  as  well  as  those 


DECEMBER  41 

vivid  pink  ones."     I  didn't  tell  Tommy,  but  he 
has  sent  them  twice  since  my  birthday. 

"I  wanted  to  send  them  every  day,"  Lester 
said,  "but  I  didn't  think  you  would  like  it." 

This  was  a  dilemma,  because  I  would  have 
liked  them  every  day  very  much  indeed. 

"You  are  very  kind,"  I  said,  "to  send  them 
as  often  as  you  do.  It  was  lovely  in  the  park  to- 
night." 

"It's  lovely  in  the  park  every  night,"  Lester 
said,  "but  I  don't  care  when  I'm  driving  through 
it  alone." 

"I  wasn't  alone,"  I  was  going  to  say,  but  in- 
stead I  said,  "Don't  you?" 

"No.  Elizabeth,  do  you — do  you  like  to  be 
alone?" 

"I  so  seldom  am,"  I  said,  "that  it's  hard  to 
say." 

"Elizabeth,  you  don't  think  I'm  serious,  you 
don't  take  me  seriously.  You  don't  know  how — 
how  serious  I  am." 

I  began  to  feel  spooky. 

"I  take  every  one  seriously,"  I  said. 


42  OVER  HERE 

"You  don't  like  my  being  a  pacifist." 

"I  don't  mind." 

"Or  a  socialist?" 

"Every  one  has  got  to  be  true  to  his  own 
innermost  feelings." 

"You  don't  know  how  glad  I  am  to  hear  you 
say  that." 

"I'm  a  kind  of  pacifist  myself,"  I  said,  "but 
don't  tell  anybody.  I  believe  in  Preparedness  on 
account  of  its  being  so  good  for  one,  and  fine  for 
politics,  but  I  don't  want  to  go  to  war." 

"Bless  you  for  those  words,"  said  Lester,  out 
of  some  book  he  had  been  reading.  He  reads 
different  kinds  of  books  all  the  time,  and  quotes 
out  of  them  in  hi's  ordinary  conversation.  Aside 
from  that  he  isn't  really  silly.  He  has  lovely 
manners  and  is  very  good-looking.  Then  he 
went  on : 

"You  don't  seem  to  think  I  am  serious,  but 
I  am  serious.  You  don't  know  just  how 
serious. 

"You're  always  serious,  Lester,"  I  said  sooth- 
ingly. 


DECEMBER  43 

"Serious,  I  mean,  about  things  I  care  for. 
Serious  about  you." 

What  could  one  say? 

"I  think  of  you  all  the  time.  I  can't  think 
of  anything  else  except  socialism.  I've — I've 
got  it  bad." 

"Got  what  bad?"  I  didn't  mean  to  ask  that, 
but  I  couldn't  sit  dumbly  listening  all  the  time. 

"Love  for  you,"  Lester  said.  "Elizabeth,  I 
want  you  to  be  my  wife— some  time." 

"I  don't  want  to,"  I  said. 

"Do  you  mean  that?"  His  voice  was  full  of 
pain,  awfully  full.  He  turned  white. 

"I  don't  want  to  be  anybody's  wife.  You 
can't  get  married  when  you  are  as  young  as  we 
are." 

"I  know  you  can't.  That's  why  I  said  some 
time." 

"Well,  let's  not  worry  about  some  time  then," 
I  said  vigorously. 

"Aren't  you  in  love  with  me?  You  aren't, 
are  you  ?" 

"No." 


44  OVER  HERE 

"Are  you  in  love  with  anybody?" 

"Lester,"  I  said,  "we  mustn't  catechize  each 
other.  There  isn't  anybody  for  me  to  be  in  love 
v;ith.  All  the  men  I  know  are  buying  Christmas 
presents  for  other  girls,  anyway." 

"I'm  buying  them  only  for  you." 

"Well,  that's  something,"  I  said.  "Lester,  I 
do  value  your  friendship.  Don't  you  think  we 
could  let  it  go  at  that  ?  I  think  when  you're  grown 
up  you'll  feel  entirely  different,  and  want  to 
marry  lots  of  different  girls  that  don't  resemble 
me  at  all." 

"No,"  he  said  slowly,  "there  will  never  be  any 
other  girl  for  me  but  you.  I  know  that  now. 
Sometimes  you  know  such  things  when  you're 
young,  I  guess.  You're  the  one.  I  may  change 
my  mind  about  my  convictions  some  time,  but  not 
about  you." 

And  I  believed  him.  I  suppose  you  do  know 
such  things  young  sometimes, — as  young  as  we 
are. 

"I'm  glad  I  told  you,"  he  said. 

I  am  not  glad  he  told  me,  only  in  one  part 


DECEMBER  45 

of  me.  In  the  other  part  I  am  frightened.  I 
keep  wondering  about  it.  Will  I  ever  feel  that 
way  about  any  one?  Did  mother  feel  that  way 
about  father?  It  hardly  seems  possible  for  all 
her  niceness.  Does  Marcella  Harcourt  feel  that 
way?  If  she  does  how  terrible  it  will  be  if  her 
sweetheart  meets  the  fate  of  those  other  Canadi- 
ans. How  terrible.  .  .  .  Poor  Lester. 
.  .  .  Did  Tommy  feel  that  way  about  that 
twenty-nine-year-old  woman  ? 


CHAPTER  III 


1  SIMPLY  hate  the  Germans.  They  are  so 
mean  in  everything  they  do.  There  ought  to 
be  some  way  of  stopping  them.  Of  course  I 
don't  believe  in  traveling  on  a  belligerent  vessel 
when  we  have  already  been  warned  that  any- 
body being  submarined  on  one  may  precipitate 
the  whole  country  into  war.  I  have  thought  that 
with  ordinary  precautions  being  taken  no  one 
need  fear  the  tragic  worst,  except  the  soldiers 
that  have  gone  into  the  trenches  more  or  less  de- 
liberately; but  these  Zeppelin  raids,  for  instance, 
make  the  cold  shivers  run  down  my  spine. 

Tommy  has  a  friend  who  was  with  the  French 
Ambulance,  and  worked  pretty  hard  carrying 
people  around  on  stretchers  and  burning  up  old 
bandages  and  one  thing  and  another.  He  has 
the  most  picturesque  tales  of  temporary  hospitals 
46 


JANUARY  47 

being  rigged  up  in  old  churches  on  the  firing  line, 
and  describes  it  all  very  well.  In  one  corner  there 
would  be  the  lame,  the  halt  and  the  blind  playing 
cards  under  the  light  of  a  rough  candle;  in  an- 
other a  priest  giving  absolution  to  one  who  was 
dying;  and  over  all  the  altar-candles'  dim  gleam, 
and  the  grim  sound  of  doctors  in  consultation 
mingled  with  the  groans  of  sick  men  in  the 
classes  between  the  two  I  have  just  described. 
He  says  he  was  never  afraid  at  that  time.  He 
was  too  busy  carting  around  the  dead  and  the 
wounded;  but  when  he  went  to  England  and 
visited  a  friend  near  a  munition  factory,  and 
there  was  a  Zeppelin  raid,  why  he  was  simply 
paralyzed.  Imagine  showers  and  showers  of 
steel  needles,  any  one  of  them  capable  of  pene- 
trating a  man  and  a  horse.  I  don't  call  that 
sportsmanlike.  Tommy  explains  that  these  raids 
do  no  real  good  except  to  alarm  and  terrify  and 
damage  a  few  non-combatants.  These  are  the 
times  that  make  me  despise  the  Germans  utterly. 
The  Scourge  of  Attila — that  is  what  they  remind 
me  of. 


48  OVER  HERE 

But  the  war  is  soon  going  to  be  over,  I  be- 
lieve. It  looks  as  if  we'd  have  a  happy  New  Year 
in  every  sense  of  the  word.  January  opened  sort 
of  auspiciously  anyway.  Tommy  sent  me  violets 
and  orchids — lots  of  violets  and  only  two  orchids, 
but  think  of  it — for  New  Year's,  as  well  as  hav- 
ing given  me  that  jade  pendant  I  helped  him  pick 
out  for  my  Christmas  present.  I  would  have  felt 
delightful  if  I  had  picked  out  something  for 
jealousy's  sake,  now  wouldn't  I  ?  The  opposite  of 
meanness  is  certainly  the  best  policy. 

I  went  to  four  New  Year's  coming-out  parties, 
and  danced  myself  into  a  state  of  delirium  and 
had  an  elegant  time,  though  they  were  all  rather 
small  and  informal.  Father  says  the  rich  are  get- 
ting so  exorbitantly  rich,  off  of  this  war,  that  they 
consider  it  poor  taste  to  make  any  kind  of  a  dis- 
play of  their  earnings.  I  like  informal  debuts 
though.  You  can  dance  oftener  with  the  best 
dancers  and  get  away  with  it.  Also  the  food 
though  not  so  splurgy  in  these  times  is  really  bet- 
ter, and  it  is  easier  to  eat  more.  I  hate  pate  de 
fois  gras  and  I  love  chicken  salad.  So  these 
privations  are  simple  for  me. 


JANUARY  49 

On  top  of  all  this  zippiness  and  joy  in  general 
is  President  Wilson's  stunning  message  or  procla- 
mation through  the  Senate  to  the  world.  He 
has  come  out  nobly  and  magnificently  for  peace. 
His  idea  is  to  mediate  with  the  Allies  and  arrive 
at  a  conclusion  that  will  settle  the  whole  business 
for  every  one,  without  too  much  anguish  in  any 
one  quarter.  It  is  certainly  a  corking  idea  for 
peace  to  come  through  us.  It  depresses  father  in 
a  way,  though  he  admits  that  he  didn't  realize 
that  Woodrow  Wilson  had  so  much  real  common 
sense  combined  with  literary  style  and  eloquence. 
Anyhow  the  whole  world  is  sitting  up  and  taking 
notice,  and  it  all  looks  pretty  good  to  me.  I  don't 
realize  that  I  mind  the  war  at  all  until  there  is 
some  prospect  of  having  it  stop.  Then  I  know 
I've  been  having  a  kind  of  unconscious  toothache 
about  it.  Eileen  Douglas'  best  friend's  husband — • 
best  English  friend's — was  killed  in  action  months 
ago  and  she — Eileen — has  just  heard  of  it.  Of 
course,  I  never  saw  this  girl,  but  I've  seen  her 
picture.  Oh,  poor  thing! 

Tommy  still  keeps  on  drilling  at  Governor's 
Island,  though  I  don't  see  why  he  should.  He 


5o  OVER  HERE 

took  me  to  have  dinner  with  his  mother  the  other 
night.  Of  course,  our  families  have  known  each 
other  for  years,  but  I've  never  been  there  before 
except  with  father  and  mother  and  other  august 
and  elderly  people  around  in  bunches.  This  time 
it  was  just  me  and  Tommy.  They  have  a  biggish 
little  house  on  Fifty-seventh  Street,  but  they  are 
not  very  rich  or  very  poor.  They  have  three 
fmaids,  and  no  butler.  I  always  felt  that  I'd 
rather  have  one  butler  and  one  maid.  A  butler 
is  so  impressive,  when  he  really  looks  like  one, 
though  so  many  butlers  nowadays  wear  glasses 
and  look  like  chauffeurs  or  carpenters.  If  I 
couldn't  have  a  "Mi-lord  the  carriage  waits" 
kind  I  wouldn't  want  any.  I  wouldn't  change 
anything  about  the  Richardsons'  house,  though. 
It  isn't  so  very  elegant,  but  it  is  so  very  right.  It 
looks  as  if  it  had  been  lived  in  and  "loved  in" 
for  thousands  of  years.  I  hate  to  use  the  word 
refined,  but  it  does  describe  it  better  than  any 
other,  the  whole  atmosphere  and  way  every  room 
in  it  looks. 

"It  is  good  to  see  you  again,   Elizabeth." 


JANUARY  51 

Tommy's  mother  i's  almost  old.  She  has  piles  of 
white  satin  hair  very  smoothly  arranged,  and  she 
wears  nothing  but  gray  and  lavender. 

.  "I  am  glad  to  see  you,  Mrs.  Richardson,"  I 
said,  "and  mother  sends  her  love,  and  says  I  am 
not  to  ask  for  more  dessert  the  way  I  used  to 
when  I  was  young." 

"How  old  are  you  now,  Elizabeth  ?" 

"Eighteen  years,  two  months  and  four  days," 
Tommy  put  in  unexpectedly.  "I  forgot  her  birth- 
day, mother,  so  now  I  am  keeping  track  of  her 
age  by  the  day  so  as  to  be  ready  next  year." 

"He  always  remembers  my  birthday  for  eleven 
months  of  the  year,"  his  mother  said,  "and  then 
the  one  month  when  it  occurs  his  mind  is  a  blank 
about  it." 

We  smiled  at  each  other  understandi'ngly. 

"Oh,  I  didn't  mind,"  I  said. 

"You  are  not  going  back  to  school  this  year, 
are  you?" 

"I  wanted  to  go  to  college,"  I  said,  "but  father 
doesn't  like  the  higher  education  for  women,  and 
it  seems  selfish  when  you  are  an  only  child  and 


52  OVER  HERE 

chiefly  want  to  go  for  the  lark,  to  insist  upon 
taking  four  years  right  out  of  your  parents' 
lives." 

"Good  girl,"  Mr.  Richardson  said  in  his  rum- 
bling kind  voice. 

"I  didn't  care  about  it  much,"  I  hastened  to 
add,  for  fear  I  had  sounded  unduly  self-sacri- 
ficing; "if  I  had,  I  suppose  I  should  have  talked 
them  over.  All  my  interests  are  really  in  New 
York, — all  my  friends,  too." 

We  were  having  a  lovely  time  like  that  when 
Tommy's  married  sister  came  down.  She  isn't 
a  woman  that  I  could  ever  like,  I  am  sorry  to 
say.  She  i's  very  smart  and  very  correct  and  she 
always  looks  me  over  as  if  to  say,  "Dear  me, 
where  did  this  little  thing  drift  in  from?"  She 
dresses  as  if  she  were  rolled  in  her  clothes  before 
the  glaze  was  put  on,  and  then  baked  in  the  kiln 
until  she  was  just  right.  I  never  saw  such  per- 
fection, and  Tommy  has  not  a  bit  of  that  manner. 
He  is  stunning — nobody  could  ever  look  stunning- 
er  than  Tommy  can,  but  it  isn't  in  any  John  Drew 
kind  of  way ;  it  is  a  sort  of  dear  shambling  way, 


JANUARY  53 

more  a  combination  of  Douglas  Fairbanks  and 
the  men  you  see  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House. 
— Easy  and  aristocratic  instead  of  stiff  and  coldly; 
luxurious. 

"How  are  you,  Elizabeth?"  she  said,  giving 
me  an  icicle  bestrung  with  minor  icicles  in  the 
shape  of  diamonds  of  all  kinds  and  varieties. 

"Very  well,  Mrs.  Godfrey,"  I  said.  "And 
you?" 

"Oh,  I'm  always  all  right,  thank  you.  Mother, 
don't  you  think  this  room  is  a  bit  stuffy?"  That's 
her  idea  of  polite  conversation. 

"We're  going  into  the  dining-room  directly," 
Mrs.  Richardson  said.  "We  were  only  waiting 
for  you,  dear." 

The  dinner  was  lovely.  Everything  I  liked 
to  eat.  So  much  so  that  for  a  while  I  thought 
it  might  have  been  collusion  between  Tommy  and 
his  mother,  who  might  have  planned  the  menu 
with  special  reference  to  my  delights  in  the  eating 
line,  but  one  look  at  Mrs.  Godfrey's  pale  cool 
face  rather  dispelled  that  illusion.  No  meal 
would  have  been  planned  especially  for  me  that 


54  OVER  HERE 

that  aristocratic  contour  was  included  in.  The 
possibilities  were  all  the  other  way.  However  she 
didn't  like  it  much. 

"Everything  is  smothered  in  cream  sauce  and 
whipped  cream,"  she  complained.  "I  feel  as  if 
I  were  eating  yards  of  tulle,  mother." 

"The  whole  effect  is  rather  bridal,"  Tommy 
said,  chuckling. 

"Elizabeth  likes  it,  I  hope?"  from  darling 
Mrs.  Richardson. 

"I  dare  say,"  Mrs.  Godfrey  replied  absently. 

rA.  silence,  and  then  enter  the  war.  Every- 
body might  just  as  well  be  resigned  to  the  fact 
that  war  will  be  talked  at  dinner  as  that  c-a-t 
spells  cat,  which  it  does  rather  painfully  on  occa- 
sions like  this  I  am  describing. 

"Have  you  any  ambition  to  go  to  France 
and  take  up  any  phase  of  work  over  there?" 
Mrs.  Richardson  asked  me.  "So  many  of  the 
young  girls  are  fitting  themselves  for  Red  Cross 
work." 

"No,  I  haven't,"  I  said. 

"No  ambition  to  go  over  and  console  some 


JANUARY  55 

poor  fellow  who  is  going  to  get  his  marching 
orders?"  Mr.  Richardson  put  in.  "I  hear  that 
American  war  brides  are  more  in  demand  than 
any  other  kind — in  England  especially." 

"I'd  rather  be  a  peace  bride,"  I  said,  and  then 
seeing  Tommy's  eyes  upon  me  I  blushed  crimson. 

"Lots  of  the  younger  set  are  going  over  this 
year,"  said  Mrs.  Cat  Godfrey,  "especially  the 
girls  who  haven't  the  responsibility  of  a  big  social 
career  before  them.  I  think  if  I  were  not  married 
and  had  my  choice  between  oozing  out  into  society 
as  so  many  of  the  girls  without  the  proper  back- 
ground are  doing  this  year  that  I'd  go  over  in  a 
minute." 

"Would  you?"  I  said,  seeming  to  be  the  one 
spoken  to,  and  having  nothing  else  to  say  for 
the  time  being. 

"Society  doesn't  mean  much  in  our  lives,  does 
it,  Beth?"  Tommy  put  in  attentively. 

"It  means  something  in  mine,"  I  said,  "and  if 
it  didn't  I  wouldn't  go  to  France  as  a  kind  of 
excuse  for  my  not  having  any  background." 

Mrs.  Godfrey  turned  and  smiled  at  me  polite- 


56  OVER  HERE 

ly.  I  hadn't  meant  to  answer  her  so  personally, 
but  I  couldn't  arrange  my  speech  any  better  in 
the  short  time  I  had  to  think  about  it. 

Conversation  became  general  for  a  while,  but 
soon  she  began  to  make  remarks  to  Tommy  on 
the  pretty  little  Mrs.  Allensby  that  she  had  seen 
him  with  so  much  of  late.  I  had  never  heard  him 
say  anything  about  any  Mrs.  Allensby.  It  was 
then  I  could  have  laid  down  my  cards  and  gone 
straight  out  into  the  dark  night,  and  home.  There 
doesn't  seem  to  be  any  rest  for  me  in  my  mind. 
As  soon  as  I  have  made  it  up  about  one  thing 
that  I  feel  about  Tommy,  some  other  thing  comes 
on  the  docket. 

"Who  is  Mrs.  Allensby?"  I  asked  Tommy 
when  I  was  on  the  way  home.  We  walked  by 
my  request,  as  it  is  so  near  and  I  didn't  want  him 
to  have  to  buy  me  a  taxicab  unless  I  was  truly 
sure  that  he  wanted  to. 

"Who  is  she?  I  don't  know,"  Tommy  said 
absently. 

"A  widow  ?"  I  persisted,  wanting  my  darkest 
suspicions  confirmed. 


JANUARY  57 

"Sure  she's  a  widow." 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  "I've  got  something  to  tell 
you.  I  had  an  offer  of  marriage  the  other  day." 

"The  deuce  you  did.  Are  you  going  to 
accept  it?" 

"That  depends." 

"May  I  know  the  lucky  man's  name?" 

"That  wouldn't  be  fair." 

"Everybody'll  have  to  know  it  some  time,  if 
you  accept  him." 

"Not  for  a  while." 

"No,  I  suppose  not." 

"I  want  your  advice." 

"What  advice  to  you  want  me  to  give?"  asked 
Tommy. 

"I  want  to  know  whether  to  accept  or  not." 

I  don't  know  why  I  put  it  like  that.  I  had 
no  idea  of  accepting  Lester  Price  for  a  husband — 
I  should  think  not, — but  I  did  want  to  know 
whether  Tommy  would  feel  it  in  any  way  if  I 
intended  to  do  so. 

"Do  you  care  about  the  young  man?" 

"Why,  yes,"   I  said.     If  I  didn't  care  for 


58  OVER  HERE 

Lester  a  great  deal  of  course  we  wouldn't  be  on 
those  terms  of  speaking  of  marrying  each  other. 

"Urn— mm,"  Tommy  mused.  "Is  he  rich?" 
he  asked  me  suddenly, 

"Very." 

Nothing  more  was  said  on  the  homeward 
journey,  excepting  inquiries  as  to  my  state  of 
•warmth  or  coldth.  I  was  disappointed  because  I 
wanted  to  discuss  the  matter  enough  to  get  some 
idea  of  Tommy's  point  of  view  on  it. 

"Wdl,  anyway,"  Tommy  said,  as  he  let  me 
into  my  own  door,  "I'm  glad  you  called  Sis.  She 
needed  it" 

"Good  night,  Tommy,"  I  said 

"Good  night,  dear,"  he  said. 

Father  and  mother  were  sitting  before  the 
fire  when  I  came  in.  Mother  was  knitting  on 
her  tenth  soldier  sweater.  Father  was  saying 
something  about  being  deeply  depressed  because 
there  were  no  bounds  or  limits  to  the  organized 
savagery  of  the  Prussians. 

"Here's  Elizabeth,"  mother  said,  breathing 


JANUARY  59 

a  quite  audible  sigh  of  relief  at  being  interrupted. 
Then  as  I  came  in  somewhat  draggingly  and  stood 
before  her,  "Well?"  she  asked. 

"Well,  what,  mother?" 

"Did  you  have  a  pleasant  evening?" 

"Yes,  very  pleasant" 

"How  is  Mrs,  Richardson?" 

"Nicely.    She  sent  her  love," 

"Was  Mrs.  Godfrey  there?" 

I  made  a  face. 

"Tommy  seemed  to  me  to  be  looking  a  little 
tired  when  he  came  for  you.  The  poor  boy  has 
to  work  pretty  hard,  I  am  afraid." 

"Any  harder  than  any  other  boy  of  his  age 
and  energy?"  father  inquired  a  little  caustically. 

"He  has  more  responsibilities.  His  father 
and  mother  are  more  or  less  dependent  on  him, 
I  suppose.  He  starts  rather  handicapped  that 
•way." 

"He  is  glad  to  do  it.    I  know  he  is,"  I  said. 

"Take  a  boy  like  Lester  Price,"  mother  went 
on  as  if  she  were  talking  logically  and  not  drag- 
ging in  an  entirely  new  subject.  "Aside  from  his 


60  OVER  HERE 

money  he  is  free  to  carve  out  his  own  career,  to 
make  anything  of  life  that  he  chooses.  He  doesn't 
have  the  kind  of  care  that  ages  a  boy  prema- 
turely." 

"He  got  aged  prematurely  all  by  himself  then," 
I  said. 

Mother  put  out  her  hand  to  me. 

"At  eighteen  we're  all  very  old  in  one  sense," 
she  said,  kissing  me.  "I  want  you  to  be  happy, 
Elizabeth.  I  don't  want  you  to  do  anything  fool- 
ish before  you  know  what  you  are  doing." 

After  I  had  put  on  my  blue  flowered  kimono 
and  braided  my  hair  for  bed  I  went  back  to  the 
living-room  to  get  a  book  I  had  left  on  the  table. 
Father  was  still  sitting  there  smoking. 

"Come  here,  Piggie,"  he  said,  adjusting  his 
knee  for  me  to  sit  on. 

He  has  the  most  beautiful  smile,  if  he  is  my 
father. 

"Was  it  a  successful  evening?"  he  asked,  as 
I  snuggled  into  his  arms. 

"Yes,  daddy." 


JANUARY  61 

"What  does  your  mother  mean  by  all  these 
tender  hints  and  sighs  about  your  doing  or  not 
doing  something  foolish?" 

"I  don't  know,  daddy,"  I  said,  "but  I  think 
she  wants  me  to  be  engaged  to  Lester  Price." 

"Lester  Price, — that  milky  baby?  How  old 
is  he?" 

"Going  on  nineteen." 

"Bless  my  soul.  Does  he  want  you  to  be  en- 
gaged to  him?" 

"Well,— yes,"  I  said. 

"Do  you  want  to  be  ?"  Father's  tones  reflected 
nothing  but  pure  astonishment. 

"Well,— no,"  I  said. 

"Well,  then,  for  heaven's  sake,  let's  hear  no 
more  about  it" 

"All  right,"  I  said. 

Father  put  his  arms  around  me  more  protect- 
ingly. 

"You  don't  like  anybody  better  than  your  old 
'father  yet,  do  you,  Kitten?" 

I  hugged  him  very  close  by  way  of  answer.  I 
don't  like  to  say  yes  or  no  to  that  sort  of  ques- 


62  OVER  HERE 

tion  until  I  have  gone  over  it  carefully  in  my 
own  mind. 

"Father,  do  you  believe  in. love?"  I  asked  him 
after  we  had  sat  by  the  fire  a  while  in  silence, 
except  that  he  bumbled  a  little  in  his  throat  the 
way  he  does  when  he  is  comfortable. 

"Love?"  he  said. 

"I  know  a  girl,"  I  said, — I  didn't  want  to 
say  it  was  Lester  so  I  changed  it  to  a  girl — "who 
says  that  no  matter  how  young  you  are  when 
you've  found  the  one,  you  can  tell  it,  and  that 
you'll  never  like  any  one  in  the  same  way  again, 
no  matter  what  happens.  Do  you  believe  that?" 

"I  don't  know  that  I  do." 

"Then  you  don't  believe  in  love?" 

"I  don't  know  that  I  don't." 

"Whither  thou  goest  I  will  go,  and  thy  people 
shall  be  my  people,  and  thy  God  my  God, — that 
kind  of  love.  This  girl  she — she  felt  that  way, 
I  think." 

"I  don't  know,"  father  said. 

"What  do  you  believe  in  then  ?"  I  asked  prac- 
tically. 


JANUARY  63 

"Integrity — integrity,"  father  burst  out.  "In- 
dividual integrity, — national  integrity.  Keeping 
faith  with  yourself,  with  your  people,  with  your 
world."  You  tap  father  anywhere  and  you  get 
a  perfect  fluid  stream  of  this  kind  of  sentiment. 

"Do  you  think  that  women  as  a  general  thing, 
father,"  I  said,  "have  a  whole  lot  of  integrity?" 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said  again. 

"How  could  I,  for  instance,  show  that  I 
had  it?" 

"By  claiming  your  own,  by  acknowledging 
your  own,  by  fighting  and  if  necessary  by  giving 
your  life  for  that  in  which  your  honor  is  involved. 
The  principle  is  the  same  whether  you  are  a  man 
or  a  woman." 

"You're  thinking  about  the  Germans  again, 
father,"  I  said. 

"Well,  maybe  I  am." 

"What  makes  you?" 

"I  suppose  the  real  secret  truth  is  that  I  want 
to  get  over  on  the  other  side  and  fight  'em.  I 
can't  because  it  wouldn't  be  fair  to  you  and  your 
mother,  and  maybe  they  wouldn't  take  me  any- 


64  OVER  HERE 

way,  but  that's  where  my  spirit  is,  daughter,  fight- 
ing in  France." 

"It  isn't  our  war,  father,"  I  said. 

"It's  more  our  war  than  you  know,  Baby. 
Do  you  realize  that  you  can't  take  a  map  of  the 
United  States  and  pick  out  any  city — little  or 
big — that  hasn't  sent  its  man  or  its  numbers  of 
men  to  help  destroy  the  enemies  of  France?" 

"No,  I  didn't  realize,"  I  said  reflectively.  "I 
suppose  that's  why  you  get  so  hot  under  the  collar 
about  this  whole  war  business.  I  didn't  know  that 
a  man  of  forty  would  feel  that  it  was  his  place  to 
go." 

"Good  God,  child !"  It  was  a  simple  exclama- 
tion but  it  told  me  a  great  deal.  "I  have  a  ren- 
dezvous with  death,"  he  said,  quoting  solemnly 
from  the  poems  of  Alan  Seeger,  "and  I'd  like  to 
keep  it  if  I  could;  that  is,  I'd  like  to  destroy  a 
few  Germans  in  the  attempt.  I  run  across  so 
much  German  propaganda  in  my  business,  and 
so  much  tolerance  and  shillyshallying  with  it  for 
expediency's  sake  that  my  endurance  is  almost  at 
an  end. — Oh,  well,  I  mustn't  wear  out  my  only 


JANUARY  65 

child  with  my  maunderings.  I  ought  to  send  you 
to  bed." 

I  put  my  head  back  on  his  shoulder. 

"Daddy,"  I  said,  "in  this  deep  crisis,  do  you 
wish  I  was  a  boy?" 

"I  wish  I  had  a  boy." 

"A  boy  to  go?" 

"Yes." 

"A  boy  like  Tommy?" 

"Yes,  like  Tommy, — like  Tommy  if  he  had 
gone  over  with  the  Canadians." 

"He's  going  to  wait,"  I  said,  "and  go  when 
we  get  into  the  war."  I  said  when — not  if,  and 
a  dreadful  feeling  smote  me.  My  heart  seemed  to 
leap  up  and  turn  over,  really  physically  to  do 
that,  and  a  wave — a  white  wave  of  faintness  bore 
down  on  me  for  an  instant,  but  it  was  only  an  in- 
stant. 

A  fat  log  in  the  fireplace  burst  open,  revealing 
millions  of  tiny  sparks  that  showered  upon  the 
hearth.  I  cuddled  all  the  way  down  in  father's 
arms,  feeling  as  sleepy  all  of  a  sudden  as  a  mo- 
ment before  I  had  been  wakeful  and  apprehensive. 


66  OVER  HERE 

"I'm  very  comfy/'  I  said,  "and  I  think  you're 
sweet,  father." 

After  which  I  added  drowsily  a  few  minutes 
later : 

"Lester  is  a  pacifist." 

"I'm  going-  to  speak  to  your  mother  about 
that"  father  said  determinedly. 


FEBRUARY 

1  THINK  Greenwich  Village  is  the  most  inter- 
esting place.  I  have  been  hearing  vague 
rumors  about  it  for  some  time,  but  having  been 
the  merest  child  until  a  few  brief  months  ago  it 
was  not  considered  the  kind  of  thing  I  ought  to 
take  up  or  investigate. 

Lester  Price  got  up  a  party  to  go  down  there 
the  other  night  and  it  was  the  greatest  lark  I 
ever  had.  Eileen  Douglas'  brother's  wife  chap- 
eroned us;  otherwise  there  was  her  husband, 
Eileen,  Dolly  Grainger  and  Peter  Ives,  and 
another  boy — a  friend  of  Lester's  that  I  had  never 
met  before,  red-headed  and  pussy-footed — and  my 
humble  self.  Mother  let  me  go  after  mature 
deliberation,  but  we  didn't  ask  father.  It  was  the 
wisest  way  to  handle  it,  both  mother  and  I  agreed. 
Dolly  simply  didn't  ask  at  home.  She  couldn't 
67 


68  OVER  HERE 

have  gone  if  she  had,  so  she  truthfully  stated  that 
she  was  going  to  a  party  given  by  Lester  and 
chaperoned  by  Billy  Douglas.  Billy  is  as  full  of 
the  deuce  as  she  can  stick,  and  only  sixteen  months 
and  three  days  older  than  Eileen,  but  having  the 
dignified  handle  of  Mrs.  tacked  on  to  her,  she  is 
very  useful  to  give  countenance  to  any  question- 
able proceedings  on  the  part  of  our  great  and 
glorious  bunch. 

Greenwich  Village  is  the  name  given  to 
Washington  Square  and  another  square  called 
Sheridan  Square  and  several  alleys  called  Mac- 
Dougal  Alley  and  Washington  Mews  and  things 
like  that.  It  is  the  home  of  poets,  artists,  paint- 
ers, interior  decorators,  actors,  anarchists,  paci- 
fists and  all  that  sort  of  people.  It  is  so  fasci- 
nating you  just  simply  gasp  when  you  get  down 
there  and  feel  yourself  completely  associated 
with  it.  The  women  all  wear  smocks  and  bob 
their  hair — even  women  grandmother's  and 
grandfather's  ages — and  the  men  wear  long  wavy 
locks  and  look  like  Greeks  or  Hungarians,  or  the 
poet  Shelley. 


FEBRUARY  69 

I  never  had  so  many  thrills  in  one  evening 
in  all  my  life.  In  the  first  place  Washington 
Square  is  very  beautiful  at  night.  There  was  a 
glister  of  snow  and  frost  over  everything  and 
that  big  arch  stood  out  gently,  gleamingly,  and 
made  me  think  of  an  altar,  though  it  isn't  shaped 
in  the  least  bit  like  one.  Eileen  says  that  the 
whole  picture  is  more  like  Paris  than  anything, 
though  the  Arc  de  Triomphe — which  is  their 
Washington  Arch — is  a  long  way  off  from  their 
Washington  Square — the  Latin  Quarter.  Eileen 
is  a  tall  slender  girl  with  a  face  like  a  flower — a 
bluebell  I  should  say — and  it  is  wonderful  to  think 
of  the  experiences  she  has  had  in  her  brief  span 
of  years,  traveling  around  the  world,  and  en- 
tountenng  all  there  is  to  encounter  in  so  doing. 
Billy  hasn't  encountered  so  much,  but  she  has 
done  a  lot  more.  Even  before  she  was  married 
she  had. 

Lester  was  very  solemn  about  his  party.  He 
whispered  to  me  that  he  could  not  tell  me  what 
it  meant  to  him  to  have  me  accompany  him  to 
the  place  where  so  many  of  his  other  ideals  were 


7o  OVER  HERE 

enshrined.  When  we  approached  Sheridan 
Square — the  whole  eight  of  us  piled  into  the 
Rolls-Royce  borrowed  from  his  father  for  the 
occasion — his  own  car  seats  a  meager  five  and  a 
half — his  emotion  scarcely  knew  any  bounds.  I 
could  sympathize  with  him  for  I  understand  that 
he  has  many  supreme  convictions  on  the  subject 
of  the  equality  and  brotherhood  of  mankind. 
Also,  I  knew  that  he  was  feeling  rather  low  in 
his  mind  about  the  turn  affairs  at  Washington 
have  taken,  and  my  behavior  to  him,  and  was 
cheered  up  by  making  arrangements  to  enter- 
tain us. 

Eileen  is  going  to  take  up  nursing,  one  of 
those  short  and  easy  courses  at  the  Red  Cross, 
and  actually  go  abroad  in  the  early  fall  to  care 
for  the  French  wounded  and  dead,  and  our  own 
i'f  we  have  any  by  that  time,  and  Lester  naturally 
resents  that,  being  so  against  giving  encourage- 
ment to  the  war  lords.  I  hate  to  have  him  and 
Eileen  estranged  because  they  grew  up  together 
and  were  always  such  chums.  Eileen  knows  how 
to  handle  him  too ;  but  since  we've  severed  diplo- 


FEBRUARY  71 

matic  relations  with  Germany,  there  is  a  coldness 
between  them. 

We  went  to  a  largish  and  very  much  white 
painted  inn,  set  eater-cornered  in  this  fascinating, 
cute  and  ducky  kind  of  square.  It  is  all  full  of 
signs  and  placards  strung  outside  of  houses  and 
buildings  and  announcing  dances  to  be  held,  and 
places  where  you  can  get  tea  and  other  things 
of  equal  alluringness.  It's  a  little  like  Coney 
Island  in  a  kind  of  way,  but  it's  all  real.  The 
people  live  the  way  they  live,  and  eat  and  dance 
and  have  studio-  parties  all  the  time.  They  don't 
change  their*  costumes  and  go  away  after  the  per- 
formance is  over, — they  are  the  performance.  I 
think  it's  the  most  romantic  thing  to  know  about. 

Inside  the  inn  I  was  rather  disappointed.  It 
is- bare  and  you  eat  off  of  the  literal  board  of  the 
table,  just  a  kind  of  kitchen  table,  and  of  course 
no  one  sweeps  up  the  crumbs ; — but  che  people  we 
saw!  Words  are  entirely  inadequate  to  describe 
them.  There  were  even  more  interesting  people 
down-stairs  in  the  cafe  part  of  the  place,  but  Les- 
ter simply  didn't  dare  to  take  us  there.  Robert 


72  OVER  HERE 

Douglas  was  hard  enough  to  manage  as  it  was, 
but  fortunately  Billy  can  twist  him  round  her 
little  finger,  sulky  though  he  may  be  while  the 
twining  is  going  on. 

There  was  a  girl  of  about  my  age  with  great 
burning  eyes,  and  bobbed  hair,  and  a  shaggy  man 
with  her,  who  smoked  cigarettes  end  on  every 
minute  of  the  time,  and  between  mouthfuls  of  the 
potted  pigeon  she  was  eating.  Lester  said  she 
had  been  married  to  an  anarchist  and  was  now 
divorcing  him  because  she  didn't  believe  in  mar- 
riage. She  was  wearing  a  straw-colored  smock 
and  a  great  velvet  hat  that  swept  out  over  her 
fine  features  and  made  her  look  very  handsome. 
To  my  surprise  she  had  an  elegant  natural  musk- 
rat  fur  coat  in  quite  good  condition. 

She  was  talking  about  Universal  Service  with 
the  zest  and  gusto  of  one  who  was  having  an 
altercation  with  a  cook.  She  actually  used  an 
oath — I  don't  mean  just  damn — in  discussing 
President  Wilson's  attitude  toward  the  War  Col- 
lege Bill.  Lester  whispered  to  me  that  the  man 
she  is  engaged  to  now,  but  not  going  to  marry 


FEBRUARY  73 

because  she  doesn't  believe  in  marriage — not  the 
man  who  was  with  her  but  another  man  still — is 
very  high  up  in  the  American  Union  Against 
Militarism  and  has  got  himself  into  considerable 
trouble  in  one  way  and  another. 

It  seems  strange  how  people's  opinions  vary. 
Mother  is  joining  that  crowd  of  women  that  go 
around  in  automobiles  to  campaign  for  the  pas- 
sage of  that  bill.  She  won't  go  out  of  the  city  of 
course,  and  she  won't  do  any  of  the  talking  from 
the  front  seats,  but  she'll  lend  her  support  to 
the  movement,  and  incidentally  have  some  excite- 
ment and  fresh  air.  I  consider  that  one  very 
pleasant  way  to  spend  the  end  of  February.  I 
guess  I  don't  know  what  I  think  about  anything. 
It  makes  my  blood  run  cold  when  anybody  hints 
of  the  actual  possibility  of  our  being  precipitated 
into  war,  but  when  father  comes  home  and  tells 
about  Senator  La  Follette  introducing  motions  to 
prevent  American  ships  being  armed,  that  makes 
me  furious.  I  think  he  is  an  old  goat  to  interfere 
with  preparedness  when  everybody  knows  by  this 
time  that  it's  the  only  self-respecting  attitude  we 


74  OVER  HERE 

can  take  as  things  are  now,  since  Bernstorff  got 
his  walking  papers.  As  for  filibustering,  it  just 
makes  me  sick  to  think  of  all  the  graft  and  down- 
right selfish  motives  that  are  behind  it.  A  senator 
gets  up  in  Congress  and  talks  the  loudest  kind  of 
foolish  nonsense  so  there  won't  be  any  time  left 
for  anything  else.  If  that  were  ever  done  in 
school  life  I  know  just  what  would  happen  to 
those  choice  spirits  that  originated  the  idea !  And 
now  at  a  national  crisis ! 

All  these  people  down  in  Washington  Square 
are  perfectly  violent  about  Peace, — not  peace 
without  victory  especially — but  some  sort  of 
socialist  kind  of  peace.  I  don't  know  what  their 
idea  is.  Rob  Douglas  says  they  are  erotic  and 
neurasthenic  and  don't  know  what  they  want.  I 
don't  agree  with  him.  That  girl  I  was  watching 
might  want  a  great  many  things  at  the  same 
time,  but  she'd  know  what  they  all  were.  I'd  like 
to  see  her  take  the  part  of  Joan  of  Arc.  I  don't 
know  why  I  would,  but  I  would.  She  could  do  it 
like  a  streak. 

Dolly  made  up  to  Lester,  but  he  was  adamant. 


FEBRUARY  75 

He  ordered  beautiful  things  to  eat,  guinea  hen  and 
romaine  with  Russian  dressing  and  prune 
souffle — all  souffle  and  very  little  prune,  the  way 
I  like  it.  I  wish  mother  would  go  down  to  Green- 
wich Village  to  get  her  next  cook.  They  always 
have  the  best  of  cooking,  Lester  says,  no  matter 
what  kind  of  a  joint  you  get  into. 

The  evening  was  marred  once  by  Billy's  hav- 
ing to  cry  and  threaten  to  go  home  if  Bob  wasn't 
more  thawed  out  in  the  midst  of  the  party.  I 
hate  scenes,  even  if  they  are  only  Billy  managing 
to  get  her  own  way.  I  don't  see  how  people  can 
quarrel  and  call  each  other  names  in  cold  blood 
and  then  go  right  on  being  the  same  again  till 
the  next  time.  I'd  rather  be  like  Mrs.  Godfrey, 
than  which  there  is  no  more  to  be  said,  I  hope. 

Also,  a  young  socialist  friend  of  Lester's  came 
over  to  our  table  and  spoke  to  us.  He  shouldn't 
have  done  so,  Lester  said,  but  he  actually  didn't 
know  any  better.  He  wore  a  bright  rose-colored 
tie  and  dancing  pumps,  and  he  is  a  psycho-analyst 
by  profession.  That  means  he  tells  anybody  by 
just  a  few  minutes'  conversation  what  dreams 


76  OVER  HERE 

and  nervous  disease  they  have,  or  are  heir  to.  I 
liked  him  and  so  did  Eileen,  but  Dolly  treated  him 
like  the  dirt  under  her  feet.  To  do  him  justice 
I  will  say  that  he  treated  her  that  way,  too. 

I  said,  "I  don't  suppose  you  think  it  is  quite 
a  consistent  attitude  to  disparage  the  Germans." 
I  didn't  want  him  to  think  we  were  rude  in  dis- 
cussing the  war,  as  we  had  sort  of  drifted  into  do- 
ing so  from  the  many  conversations  we  had  over- 
heard. 

"Why  shouldn't  you  disparage  the  Germans  ?" 
he  asked  quizzically.  "Isn't  this  technically  a 
free  country  ?  Aren't  we  technically  a  free  people 
and  a  free  race  ?" 

"And  it  is  a  war  of  democracy,"  I  added. 

"I  believe  in  every  one  doing  what  he  chooses," 
he  said,  "being  what  he  chooses  to  be,  thinking 
what  he  chooses  to  think,  saying  what  he  chooses 
to  say." 

"Wouldn't  that  make  it  rather  awkward?"  I 
hazarded. 

"Why  not  make  it  awkward  ?"  he  said. 


FEBRUARY  77 

"Well,  of  course," — I  began. 

"Why  try  to  make  anything — any  way?"  he 
said.  "Freedom  doesn't  mean  that,  does  it? 
Freedom  means  discarding — refusing  the  state 
of  consciousness  that  makes  you  think  of  things 
as  being  awkward  or  not  awkward,  good  or  not 
good.  The  thing  that  is  a  good  thing  for  you  to 
say  is  the  thing  uppermost — the  thing  intrinsically 
pure  because  it  emanates  from  your  untrammeled 
feeling." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "I  hope—" 

But  Bob  Douglas  told  me  to  come  over  and 
sit  beside  Billy  because  there  were  some  things 
Billy  had  to  talk  over  with  me,  so  I  had  to  excuse 
myself  from  this  peculiar  discussion.  I  should 
have  liked  to  go  on  with  it. 

I  wanted  to  go  to  the  Pirates'  Cave  and  the 
Green  Tree  Gift  Shop,  but  Lester  said  they  were 
both  closed  at  that  time  of  night,  and  anyway 
we  had  to  be  home  by  nine-thirty.  Mother  said 
she  could  hold  down  the  lid  that  long,  and  no 
longer.  So  reluctantly  we  put  on  our  wraps  and 


78  OVER  HERE 

started  homeward.  My  education  was  certainly 
advanced  a  great  deal  by  the  sights  and  adven- 
tures of  that  evening. 

How  little  can  we  tell  what  Fate  holds  in  store 
for  us,  though.  I  went  home  expecting  to  find 
father  waiting  for  me,  semi-placated  by  mother, 
and  to  give  a  very  expurgated  account  of  the 
evening  to  them,  and  then  go  to  bed  and  cry  for 
half  an  hour  over  the  way  I  had  juggled  with  the 
real  truth  as  represented  to  my  father;  but  what 
should  happen  but  for  me  to  find  that  both  my 
doting  parents  had  suddenly  been  called  out  to 
my  Aunt  Ida's,  and  I  left  alone  with  my  thoughts. 

I  wasn't  alone  very  long,  however.  Precisely 
ten  minutes  after  I  had  entered  the  house  Tommy 
called  up  in  the  most  towering  rage  I  have  ever 
known  him  or  any  man  to  be  in.  I  had  purposely 
put  him  as  far  out  of  my  mind  as  was  possible 
for  the  entire  evening,  as  I  knew  if  I  ever  stopped 
to  think  how  he  would  feel  about  it,  that  my 
guilt  would  push  all  my  pleasurable  sensations 
out  of  the  reckoning. 

The  first  thing  he  said  was  that  he  thought  my 


FEBRUARY  79 

mother  must  be  crazy.  I  said  she  wasn't  of 
course,  and  that  I  thought  it  was  all  right  for  me 
to  go  on  a  party  that  was  chaperoned.  He  had 
just  heard  about  the  expedition  through  some  in- 
discreet leak  somewhere,  probably  traceable  to 
Dolly  as  usual,  and  he  was  simply  boiling,  foam- 
ing, frothing.  At  first  I  protested  gently,  but  that 
not  being  any  use,  and  feeling  so  much  like  cry- 
ing anyway,  I  hung  up  the  receiver. 

And  so  now  it  has  been  days  and  days — five 
days,  seventeen  hours  and  fourteen  minutes  to 
be  exact,  since  Tommy  and  I  have  had  any  con- 
versation with  each  other.  I  can  hardly  bear  it. 
Of  course  he  has  been  here,  but  I  was  out, — and 
one  day  he  telephoned  but  I  would  not  go  and 
speak  to  him  on  account  of  not  knowing  what 
in  the  world  to  say  to  him.  He  probably  never  will 
forgive  me  for  going  down  into  that  horrid  village 
with  one  who  is  well  known  to  be  a  pacifist. 

I  don't  blame  him,  of  course.  He  has  a  great 
many  things  on  his  mind  besides  me,  and  me  he 
rather  expects  to  behave  comfortably  and  not 
to  do  crazy  things  and  deceive  either  one  of  my 


8o  OVER  HERE 

parents.  There  has  been  an  argument  going 
on  between  us  ever  since  February  third. 
He  thinks  we  are  as  good  as  at  war  now,  and 
I  am  perfectly  sure  that  we  are  not  and  needn't 
be.  That  old  submarine  blockade  isn't  anything 
so  very  startling.  It's  just  about  what  you  expect 
of  that  barbarous  nation,  Germany.  It's  only  the 
way  they've  behaved  all  the  time,  and  now  we 
are  behaving  threateningly  to  them.  Armed  neu- 
trality with  the  emphasis  on  the  armed  is  the  best 
way  to  handle  such  people.  I  don't  think  Ambas- 
sador Gerard  was  very  safe  over  there,  anyhow. 
I  know  a  girl  who  was  a  relative  of  his  by  mar- 
riage, and  she  says  her  whole  family  is  perfectly 
relieved  to  think  he  will  soon  set  foot  on  Ameri- 
can terra  firma. 

Father  is  going  on  in  the  usual  fatherish  way, 
but  I  don't  have  any  arguments  with  him  because 
it  takes  you  and  another  person  to  have  an  argu- 
ment, and  I  won't  argue  with  anybody  but 
Tommy.  I  couldn't,  because  it  uses  me  up  too 
much.  Father  says  we  may  be  going  to  get  into 
this  war  at  this  eleventh  hour  to  save  our  faces, 


FEBRUARY  81 

and  what  remaining  scrap  of  decency  our  shifty 
course  has  left  us — that's  father!  He  thinks — 
dear  darling — that  the  Allies  are  beaten  without 
us,  and  if  we  don't  help  with  men  and  foodstuffs 
the  Huns  will  conquer  the  world.  I  came  home 
last  night  and  found  him  with  his  face  buried  in 
his  hands  because  he  was  in  such  a  state  of  mind 
about  it  all.  He  cares  about  politics  and  patriot- 
ism as  if  they  were  me  and  mother  personified. 
It  seems  strange  that  anybody  can  feel  about  those 
things  as  if  they  were  personal  troubles,  like  death 
and  reverses  and  quarreling  with  those  you  love, 
and  also  that  any  father  of  mine  can  want  to  shed 
blood  between  us  and  Germany, — that  is,  to  go 
to  war  and  bring  down  suffering  and  famine  on 
us  here. 

It  is,  after  all,  a  selfish  idea  of  anybody  to 
want  to  go  and  fight.  I  can't  help  thinking  that 
it  is  first  and  foremost  selfish.  If  you  loved  any- 
body really  and  truly  you  would  care  more  about 
them  than  war.  You  wouldn't  want  to  go  to 
the  front  and  leave  them.  I  can  understand  that 
father  perhaps  would.  He  has  had  me  and  mother 


82  OVER  HERE 

a  great  many  years  anyway,  and  he  has  a  romantic 
temperament.  Besides  life  i's  an  awful  grind  for 
him.  So  I  don't  blame  him  so  much, — that  is  if 
there  is  a  war, — though  I  don't  for  a  moment 
admit  that  there  is  going  to  be, — I  can  see  that 
father  would  get  a  whole  lot  out  of  it  if  he  could 
at  least  skin  over  to  the  other  side  and  look 
around  a  little.  But  what  I  can't  see  is  how  if 
anybody  younger — as  young  as  twenty-seven  or 
eight — cared  for  any  one  over  here  in  any  real 
way  they  could  possibly  be  looking  forward  to 
the  moment  when  war  would  be  declared  and 
they  could  engage  in  it. 

"Where  is  your  sporting  instinct,  child?" 
Tommy  asked  me  one  day  in  the  midst  of  our 
going  over  things  together  for  the  thousandth 
time  more  or  less.  "We've  agreed  so  amicably 
about  everything  in  the  world  up  to  now.  You 
seemed  so  interested  in  all  I've  been  doing  and 
planning,  and  now  you  suddenly  decide  to  can 
the  war  stuff.  Now  that  we  stand  some  chance 
of  getting  into  the  Big  Game  you  lose  your  inter- 
est." 


FEBRUARY  83 

"I  am  crazy  about  Plattsburg,"  I  said,  "but 
I  don't  believe  in  war  as  much  as  you  do." 

"I  wonder  why  not?" 

"I  wonder?"  I  said. 

"Doesn't  Lester  believe  in  war?" 

"No,  he  doesn't." 

"Oh,  ho!  Well,  I  suppose  that's  what  I  get 
for  trying1  to  rob  the  cradle.  Lester  doesn't  be- 
lieve in  war,  and  so  forsooth — " 

"It  isn't  that,"  I  said.  "I  don't  think  that 
people  who  are  fond  of  the  people  they  might 
have  to  leave  behind  ought  to  be  in  such  a  furious 
hurry  to  declare  war." 

"Oh,  woman,"  Tommy  said,  "I  give  you  up!" 

And  now  ever  since  then  I  haven't  seen  him. 
I've  only  had  that  one  horrid  telephone  message, 
and  I  don't  know  what  I  should  say  to  him  if  I 
did  see  him.  After  any  one  has  raged  and 
stormed  at  you,  it's  hard  to  know  what  to  say. 
I  would  rather  die  than  have  any  one  I  care  for 
get  angry  with  me,  anyway.  I  suppose  most 
people  would. 


CHAPTER  V 

MARCH 

THE  Ides  of  March  are  here. — Julius  Gesar. 
I  never  knew  such  a  queer  lonelyish  time 
of  year  in  all  my  life.  I  can  only  figure  out  in 
part  what's  the  matter,  but  even  if  we  are  going 
to  get  right  into  the  war  I  don't  see  any  reason 
for  all  New  York  to  get  its  tail  between  its  legs 
and  palpitate.  It  isn't  that  anybody  seems  afraid. 
Father  thinks  we're  a  nation  of  cowards,  but  I 
don't.  A  dog  is  frightened  when  a  cloud  of  it 
doesn't  know  what  seems  to  hang  over  it  and 
keeps  on  failing  to  burst,  but  if  it  hasn't  been 
overbred  or  anything  it  goes  right  at  its  enemy 
as  soon  as  it  sees  it  and  shakes  the  daylight  out 
of  it  So  with  us,  yet  this  weird  invisible  thing 
that  overshadows  us  is  so  weird  and  so  invisible 
that  you  wouldn't  think  rich  and  poor  alike  would 
be  cringing  under  it,  but  they  are. 

84 


MARCH  85 

You  can't  go  anywhere  in  any  comfort  with 
belongings  to  hold,  because  the  moment  you  are 
seated  in  a  public  place  the  orchestra  plays  The 
Star  Spangled  Banner  and  just  as  soon  as  you 
have  recovered  from  that, — The  Marseillaise.  I 
don't  carry  a  muff  any  more  no  matter  how  cold 
my  hands  get,  because  I  simply  can't  manage  it 
with  all  this  rising  going  on.  You're  lucky  if 
you  don't  get  Columbia,  Gem  of  the  Ocean  sand- 
wiched in  between  the  others.  I  don't  mind  it  at 
the  movies  so  much — I  like  to  go  to  the  movies 
now  all  the  military  stuff  is  released  and  you 
can  really  see  our  boys  drilling — but  in  a  res- 
taurant when  you  are  perishing  of  hunger  and  the 
waiter  after  interminable  delays  has  just  served 
the  soup,  why,  then  one  or  two  verses  of  orches- 
tral enthusiasm  comes  harder.  Every  time  they 
play  the  national  anthem  I  choke  right  up,  and 
that's  so  mortifying.  I'm  getting  to  be  a  regular 
baby.  I  am  not  a  crying  girl  at  all,  but  let  some- 
body start  something  patriotic  and  I'm  off.  Even 
the  tramping  of  soldiers'  feet  when  I  run  into  a 
little  company  of  them  going  into  the  armory,  and 


86  OVER  HERE 

the  tears  come.    It  isn't  so  much  personal  senti- 
ment either  as  a  feeling  there  is  in  the  air. 

Certainly  I  know  very  little  about  France 
compared  to  the  people  who  have  gone  over  there 
and  lived  in  her — or  should  I  say  on  her? — for 
any  length  of  time,  but  just  that  one  name — 
France — somehow  makes  you  feel  a  whole  rush  of 
surging  emotions  that  you  didn't  know  you  had  be- 
fore. I  don't  know  what  it  is.  Tommy  and 
Eileen  Douglas  have  described  to  me  the  way 
Southern  France  looks, — brilliant  clay  color  and 
brilliant  green,  and  all  overrunning  with  flowers 
and  beautiful  shrubs, — and  also  Paris  which  I  al- 
ways imagine  to  be  like  a  kind  of  glorified  Chi- 
cago, only  cream-colored  and  graceful  in  all  its 
outlines,  and  not  trashy  in  any  way, — but  it  isn't 
any  of  their  descriptions  that  count,  or  even  pic- 
tures of  little  ruined  villages  in  the  sun  with 
gallant  French  officers  presiding  over  them, — it's 
something  way  above  all  that.  It  isn't  what  you 
see  in  a  photograph  of  a  friend  that  brings  an 
emotion  of  love  into  your  heart,  it's  the  friend 
him  or  herself  that  you  are  reminded  of.  I  am 


MARCH  87 

reminded  of  something  about  France  that  I  don't 
even  know.  That  may  sound  silly,  but  it's  true 
nevertheless. 

"A  Man  from  This  House  Is  Fighting  in 
France," — they  threw  a  picture  of  a  house — I 
don't  know  where  the  house  was  but  it  was  very 
foreign-looking — on  the  screen  yesterday  at  the 
Rialto,  and  I  nearly  died.  "A  Man  from  This 
House  Is  Fighting  in  France;"  and  it  was  just 
a  little  stone  house  with  the  table  s*et  for  supper 
and  a  young  girl  in  the  window  listlessly  looking 
out. 

If  we  do  get  into  it  and  there  is  a  conscription 
bill  passed  a  month  or  so  afterward,  why,  then  I 
suppose  those  that  are  within  the  draft  age  can 
get  exempted  if  they  have  dependents.  Tommy 
has  his  father  and  mother  and  I  strongly  suspect 
some  fraction  of  Mrs.  Godfrey  on  his  hands;  any- 
how he  has  to  stake  her  to  a  generous  share  of 
what  he  provides  at  his  parents'  table.  I  believe 
in  the  last  analysis  Tommy  would  think  a  long 
time  before  he  was  tempted  to  go  and  leave  his 
mother  and  father  to  shift  for  themselves.  It  is 


88  OVER  HERE 

all  right  to  talk  these  things  over  in  theory,  but 
when  it  comes  to  the  actual  working  out  of  them 
there  are  lots  of  things  to  be  put  before  duty  to 
one's  country. 

Tommy  is  away  now  on  business,  but  I  had  a 
nice  talk  with  him  on  the  telephone  before  he 
went  and  things  rather  smoothed  themselves  out 
between  us.  After  all,  he  knows  that  I  know  and 
I  know  that  he  knows  that  nothing  can  disturb 
our  real  faith  in  each  other,  or  real  enjoyment  in 
each  other's  companionship  and  way  of  having 
fun  over  trifles.  We  are  more  congenial  than 
many  people  who  are  exactly  the  same  age.  I 
was  glad  to  have  this  little  telephone  talk  with 
him  though.  I  miss  him  during  all  this  National 
Upset.  I  should  like  to  know  how  he  feels  about 
it,  though  I  trust  that  in  spite  of  his  natural  sad- 
ness about  being  unable  to  enlist  at  once,  he  will 
look  at  the  whole  proposition  in  the  way  I  have 
indicated. 

My  two  cousins,  George  and  Roland,  are  just 
spoiling  for  war,  and  I  think  perhaps  it  will  be 
a  good  place  for  them.  Roland's  mustache  would 


MARCH  89 

certainly  be  very  becoming  to  a  uniform.  I  sus- 
pect him  of  wishing  to  get  quite  spoony  with  me, 
but  I  pretend  that  my  mind  is  on  other  and  loftier 
matters.  He  is  deliberating  whether  to  enlist  or 
not  without  waiting  for  the  final  ultimatum.  He 
keeps  asking  me  how  much  or  little  I'd  care,  and 
I  keep  evading  the  question,  though  he  is  very 
handsome  certainly  and  a  great  relief  from  Lester, 
whom  everybody  is  picking  ort  indiscriminatingly 
just  at  present.  Lester's  convictions  are  very  dear 
to  him,  but  they  are  trying,  especially  to  me  who 
feel  in  honor  bound  to  defend  him  at  times. 

I  saw  Marcella  Harcourt  to-day.  Her  friend 
is  reported  as  among  the  missing,  and  yet  she 
could  smile.  Perhaps  she  hasn't  got  so  much  in 
her  as  I  thought  she  had,  or  it  may  just  possibly 
be  that  he  wasn't  a  sweetheart  after  all.  He  may 
have  been  just  a  suitor  like  Lester. 

She  talked  about  a  great  many  things  very 
feverishly,  among  other  things  about  the  cutting 
down  of  Epping  and  Windsor  Forest  by  the  Ca- 
nadians who  went  to  England  for  the  purpose.  It 
was  certainly  quite  noble  of  England  to  give  up  her 


90  OVER  HERE 

famous  woodland ;  even  I  have  heard  of  Windsor 
Forest,  and  have  always  thought  it  must  be  a 
very  epic-looking  place ;  and  now  it  is  to  be  sacri- 
ficed to  make  trenches  of.  The  Englishmen  are 
not  natural  woodcutters  and  the  Canadians  are. 
Marcella  is  awfully  well  posted  on  everything  her 
compatriots  do.  Canadian  women  have  done  a 
terrific  amount  of  war  work.  American  women 
don't  coordinate  so  well.  I  think  they  could  if 
they  just  buckled  down  to  it,  but  buckling  down 
is  hard  work.  Father  says  we  only  strike  an  aver- 
age that  way  by  some  women  killing  themselves 
at  it,  and  some  doing  nothing. 

Personally  I  think  my  mother  does  pretty 
well.  She  has  a  natural  tendency  to  take  the 
easy  side,  but  when  she  is  put  to  it  she  does 
everything  required  of  her  without  a  murmur, 
and  she  keeps  steadily  at  it.  She  balked  at  stand- 
ing at  the  door  of  a  restaurant  on  a  stormy  night 
with  a  small  dipper  in  which  she  was  supposed  to 
gather  coin  for  the  French  Relief,  but  she  did 
work  night  and  day  to  help  equip  a  unit  that  was 
getting  ready  last  week.  She  spent  almost  all  of 


MARCH  91 

one  night  without  sleep  down  at  Red  Cross  head- 
quarters. Of  course,  that  doesn't  sound  much, 
but  she's  awfully  dependent  on  her  sleep. 

I'm  not  doing  anything  much  but  knitting  and 
the  same  old  ticket  selling  and  hopping  around 
for  different  relief  societies  that  somebody  has 
got  me  into.  Dolly  Grainger  says  her  mother 
does  so  much  of  all  this  business  that  she  thinks 
it  lets  her  out,  but  I  tell  her  nothing  lets  her 
out  personally.  We  certainly  can't  lie  back  on 
what  any  one  else  i's  doing  at  this  crisis.  We've 
got  to  act  for  ourselves. 

I  can't  help  being  glad  that  the  war  is  so  far 
away,  though.  I  hate  the  sight  of  blood.  There 
can't  be  anything  much  grimmer  over  there  than 
the  constant  crying  of  extras  that  we  get.  It  is 
the  dolefullest  sound,  and  you  hear  it  any  time, 
especially  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  just  a 
monotonous  mournful  kind  of  chant  that  you 
can't  catch  any  of  the  words  of.  It  rises  sud- 
denly out  of  the  darkness,  and  you  don't  know 
what  calamity  it  heralds.  U-boats  sinking,  or 
munition  plants  blown  up,  or  Americans  killed 


92  OVER  HERE 

on  the  high  seas,  or  anything.  It  reminds  me  of 
the  way  my  nurse  used  to  frighten  me  in  my 
childhood  by  telling  me  that  it  was  goblins  com- 
ing to  see  if  my  arms  and  legs  were  under  the 
covers. 

I  wonder  if  the  Germans  could  get  over  here 
and  blow  us  up?  Only  the  lower  part  of  New 
York  City  would  be  in  actual  danger  from  bom- 
bardment from  the  harbor ;  but  I  hope  they  won't. 
A  lot  of  estimable  people  live  down  as  far  as 
Fourteenth  Street,  and  I  should  hate  to  go 
through  the  experience  of  a  tragedy  of  that  mag- 
nitude even  if  I  remained  personally  unmangled. 

Tommy  came  home  yesterday.  He  looked 
tired  when  I  first  saw  him,  but  after  dinner — he 
came  late  in  the  afternoon  and  mother  asked  him 
to  stay — he  looked  more  like  himself  and  cheered 
up  a  good  deal.  I  was  thankful  father  wasn't 
at  home.  I  just  didn't  want  to  hear  any  more. 
Verge-of-the-War  stuff,  and  those  two  exemplify 
the  whole  situation  whenever  they  get  a  few  min- 
utes together  and  are  able  to  discuss  matters. 


MARCH  93 

After  dinner  mother  went  off  to  a  suffrage  meet- 
ing and  left  us  to  chaperon  each  other. 

"Well,  how  shall  I  begin  to  tell  what  hap- 
pened?" 

We  talked  while  Bessie  was  clearing  the  table 
in  the  dining-room  just  beyond;  I  don't  know 
what  about.  Mostly  about  the  Germans  in  the 
neighborhood  and  whether  one  should  or  should 
not  trade  with  them.  I  don't  believe  one  should 
except  in  special  instances  of  Germans  one  knows 
and  likes.  I  wouldn't  go  into  a  German  restaurant 
for  anything — the  food  would  choke  me,  and  I 
won't  play  a  bit  of  German  music,  neither  do  I 
think  they  should  give  German  opera  at  the 
Metropolitan — but  I  do  think  our  grocer  is  blame- 
less, and  also  that  comfortable  good-looking  laun- 
dress we  employ  that  does  up  my  tucked  waists  as 
if  they  were  her  own  daughter's. 

"In  other  words  you  have  a  Prussian  preju- 
dice that  works  theoretically  but  not  actually." 

"Well,— yes,"  I  said. 

"Feminine,"  Tommy  said. 


94  OVER  HERE 

"You  aren't  very  complimentary,"  I  said. 
When  a  man  begins  to  call  you  feminine  he  al- 
ways means  something  patronizing. 

We  went  and  stood  at  the  window  and  looked 
down  at  the  park  all  atwinkle  with  little  lights 
and  frosted  with  snow.  Tommy  reached  over  to 
the  switch  and  put  the  electricity  out  so  that  we 
could  see  the  effect  better.  There  was  my  best 
loved  part  of  New  York  lying  safe  and  unharmed 
before  me,  breathing  down  there  in  the  night  like 
a  human  being,  and  Tommy  was  beside  me.  A: 
hand  organ  came  along  below  our  windows  and 
began  to  play  that  obsolete  tune — Tipperary. 

"Beth,"  Tommy  said,  "you're  crying." 

"I  am  not,"  I  said,  "specially." 

"Tell  me  what  made  you." 

"I  don't  know,  so  I  can't." 

"It's  time  you  and  I  had  a  show-down," 
Tommy  said  firmly.  "I  can't  make  you  out,  so 
I  don't  know  where  we're  at.  I  propose  to  dis- 
cover." 

We  faced  each  other  there  in  the  window  en- 


MARCH  95 

closure.  I  can  look  almost  levelly  into  his  eyes, 
so  I  did. 

"Go  on,  Tommy,"  I  said. 

"Well,  then,  are  you  going  to  marry  Lester 
Price?" 

"No." 

"Why  did  you  tell  me  you  were  then?" 

"I  didn't.  I  asked  your  advice  about  it.  If 
I  had  been  going  to,  I  wouldn't  have  wanted  your 
advice." 

"Oh  ho!"  he  said  thoughtfully.  Then  he 
added  abruptly,  "What's  the  matter  with  you 
about  the  war?" 

"I'm  sick  of  it,"  I  said. 

"There's  going  to  be  a  war,"  he  said,  "and 
I'm  going  to  get  in  it.  If  you're  sick  of  it — " 

"What's  that  got  to  do  with  me?"  I  said. 

"Well,  if  you  don't  know— I  don't." 

Once  more  we  turned  our  attention  to  the 
park.  I  could  not  help  shivering.  It  does  look 
so  peaceful  down  there,  just  as  if  there  couldn't 
ever  be  anything  happen  to  it,  or  anybody  within 


96  OVER  HERE 

its  reach.  Tommy  put  his  arm  across  my  shoul- 
der. 

"Beth,"  he  whispered  slowly  and  somewhat 
sadly,  "you're  beautiful." 

"You're  great,  Tommy,"  I  said.  "There's 
nobody  like  you." 

He  took  me  by  the  shoulders  and  turned  me 
toward  him  till  he  could  see  my  expression. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said,  looking  into  my  face, 
"I  don't  know." 

I  closed  my  eyes. 

"Yes,  you  do  know,"  I  said  with  the  greatest 
difficulty,  "you  do  know,  and  I  know." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  cried  hoarsely, 
"what  do  you  mean?" 

I  looked  at  him  steadily. 

"You  know  what  I  mean,"  I  repeated,  "you're 
mine,  Tommy,  and  I  am  yours."  It  was  like  a 
dream.  We  say  what  we  do  in  dreams,  for  no 
reason  except  that  we  are  dreaming. 

"My  God,"  Tommy  said,  "that's  it." 

"What  did  you  think  was  it?"  I  said — after- 
ward. 


MARCH  97 

"I  thought  I  loved  you,  and  I'd  have  to  marry 
you  if  I  could,  no  matter  what  you  were  really 
like  inside," 

"I  always  knew  what  you  were  like  inside," 
I  said. 

"Now,  you  are  somebody  quite  different," 
Tommy  said,  laughing  quietly. 

"Yes,  I  am,"  I  said. 

"You're  so  beautiful." 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  nearly  twisting  a  button 
from  its  moorings,  "I'm  not  really,  you  know." 
But  I  adore  to  have  him  think  that  I  am,  of  course. 
I'm  always  going  to  dress  very  neatly  now,  and 
in  things  that  he  likes. 

"When  we  are  married,"  he  said  a  good  deal 
later,  "do  you  think  I  shall  ever  penetrate  to  the 
truly  innermost  you?  Will  the  day  come  when 
you  will  really  talk  to  me  and  tell  me  what's  in 
the  secret  places?" 

"It  won't  need  to  come,  but  if  you  want  it 
to — it  will,"  I  said. 

"Do  you  love  me,  Beth?" 

I  do.    I  love  him  better  than  any  woman  that 


98  OVER  HERE 

I  know  of  has  ever  loved  any  man  before.  That 
may  not  be  true,  though  I  think  it  is.  How  do  I 
know  how  any  woman  may  have  felt  before? 
There  is  nothing  that  any  one  can  tell  you  or 
that  you  can  read  in  books  that  expresses  a  feeling 
of  that  kind  in  the  least.  There  is  nothing  that 
tells  you  anything  that  you  find  out  in  one  min- 
ute of  experience. 

Tommy  and  I  love  each  other.  Now  let  the 
world  go  on  fighting  or  stop  fighting.  Nothing 
that  is  very  terrible  or  very  wrong  can  happen 
to  us  now.  There  will  be  a  way  smoothed  out 
for  every  one,  I  am  convinced.  When  there  is 
love  there  must  be  peace  and  rest.  All  those 
women  with  their  hearts  full  of  love  for  their 
soldier  sweethearts  will  stop  the  war  by  their 
power  of  loving,  or  the  war  will  be  stopped  for 
them.  Tommy  says  I  am  wise,  and  surely  this 
is  real  wisdom. 

Nothing  matters  now,  though.  Love  is  here 
for  Tommy  and  me. 

Now  let  him  go  to  war — if  he  wants  to;  but 


MARCH  99 

he  won't  want  to.    We  couldn't  be  separated.  We 
simply  couldn't  be! 

If  Marcella  Harcourt  loves  that  man,  he  isn't 
dead.  I  must  tell  her  that  to-morrow,  poor  thing: 
I  wonder  why  she  ever  let  him  go. 


CHAPTER  VI 

APRIL 

I  DECIDED  that  I  wouldn't  just  simply  sit 
around  and  wait  for  war  to  be  declared.  Once 
when  I  had  been  exposed  to  the  measles,  and  the 
little  girl  I  took  them  of  was  supposed  to  be  dying, 
which  didn't  add  much  to  the  general  anticipatory 
feelings  I  had,  I  sat  down  and  waited  for  my  time 
to  come.  That  it  didn't  arrive  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  devastating  misery  I  endured.  "It  takes 
one  voyage  to  learn,"  as  my  grandfather  says,  and 
I  have  always  flattered  myself  that  it  didn't  ever 
take  me  more  than  one.  I  remembered  this 
measles  event  which  only  happened  a  year  and  a 
half  ago — but  that's  a  long  time  in  my  life — and 
decided  that  I  wouldn't  repeat  the  incident.  So 
I  ignored  the  war.  A's  far  as  I  was  concerned 
there  wasn't  going  to  be  any  war,  I  argued,  so 
why  worry.  And  I  didn't. 

100 


APRIL  lor 

But  I  must  admit  that  a  great  many  things 
conspired  to  try  to  break  into  my  peace  of  mind. 
The  day  the  president  called  the  Special  Session 
of  Congress,  Fraulein  Walerstein  came  in  from 
Long  Island  ostensibly  to  buy  some  hair  tonic 
and  Liederkranz  cheese,  but  in  reality  to  pour 
her  troubles  into  mother's  already  overburdened 
breast.  She  was  dreadfully  frightened  for  fear 
she  might  be  interned  or  have  her  trunks  gone 
through  or  something.  She  said  here  she  was  in 
an  alien  country  living  peaceably  in  the  suburbs 
with  an  American  sister-in-law,  and  doing  nobody 
any  more  harm  than  to  give  German  and  music 
lessons  by  the  hour,  and  here  was  her  beloved 
Fatherland  involved  in  this  unreasonable  im- 
broglio with  her  adopted  country  which  was 
behaving  in  a  manner  too  despicable  for  her  to 
bear,  and  what  was  she  to  do  and  how  to  hold 
it  in  her  heart? 

I  was  glad  to  hear  mother  tell  her,  though  a 
trifle  more  elegantly  than  I  am  at  present  indi- 
cating, that  if  she  wanted  to  perch  under  our 
roof-tree  when  her  emotions  got  too  much  for 


102  OVER  HERE 

her  she'd  have  to  cut  out  the  derogatory  stuff. 
Mother  told  her  flatly  that  she  couldn't  get  away 
with  this  adjective-adjective  America  business, 
and  reminded  her  of  Germany's  duplicity  in  the 
matter  of  Mexico.  Whereupon  Fraulein  wept  and 
said  that  such  things  had  to  be  done;  and  Ger- 
man employees  in  whatever  station  had  to  do 
what  God  and  the  Kaiser  pointed  out  to  them  as 
their  duty,  and  besides  that  it  was  a  very  expe- 
dient idea  and  might  have  worked.  Mother 
frothed  gently  at  the  mouth  and  said  that  she 
guessed  they  had  better  leave  the  Kaiser's  God 
out  of  it,  as  he  was  not  a  very  popular  charac- 
ter in  the  States  just  at  present;  which  Fraulein 
did  not  like  very  much,  but  had  to  swallow.  I 
love  to  see  mother  rampant,  because  she  so  rarely 
gets  excited  over  anything. 

Then  followed  a  rather  fishy  tale  about  a 
rich  family  where  Fraulein  gives  lessons.  It 
seems  that  she  was  alone  in  the  library  and  went 
to  look  at  a  book  in  the  bookcase,  and  as  she  did 
so  some  kind  of  a  paper  dropped  out  of  it  which 
she  was  naturally  examining  when  the  master  of 


APRIL  103 

the  house,  whom  she  thought  to  be  in  town  at  his 
business,  but  who  was  actually  at  home,  sick  in  a 
dressing-gown  and  slippers,  caught  her  at  it  and 
gave  her  the  merry  dickens  for  it.  Mother  soothed 
her  and  assured  her  that  she  was  unduly  nervous 
and  excitable  and  must  have  exaggerated  the  inci- 
dent. It  didn't  occur  to  me  that  she  was  exag- 
gerating. I  thought  she  was  doing  the  exact 
opposite,  and  concealing  the  real  point  of  the 
matter,  whatever  it  was.  The  interview  termi- 
nated by  her  begging  mother  not  to  go  into  the 
subways  or  the  Hudson  tunnels — why,  goodness 
only  knows — and  by  her  assuring  me  that  I  was 
very  undeveloped  for  my  age  compared  with  the 
rosy  German  madchens.  Fraulein  has  one  of 
those  natures  whose  parting  word  is  always  an 
unflattering  one.  I  hope  she  chokes  on  her  next 
meal  of  weiner  schnitzel  and  noodles. 

This  was  the  second  of  the  month.  On  the 
evening  of  the  fifth  father  telephoned  home  from 
the  club  that  he  didn't  expect  to  be  home  for  din- 
ner and  that  it  was  only  a  matter  of  a  few  hours 
before  we  would  be  actually  in  a  state  of  war. 


104  OVER  HERE 

My  first  thought  was  the  unworthy  regret  that 
Tommy  shouldn't  have  been  the  first  to  break  the 
momentous  news  to  me,  but  he  wasn't  even  in 
New  York  to  do  so,  as  he  had  been  again  called 
away  on  a  business  trip,  and  it  had  been  a  week 
since  I  had  seen  him.  In  fact,  I  had  seen  him 
only  once  since — that  night.  There  were  ways 
in  which  I  was  glad  I  hadn't.  It  is  hard  in  broad 
daylight  to  look  at  people  and  talk  commonplaces 
with  them  when  you  have  promised  them  that  you 
would  marry  them  the  night  before.  I  found 
that  out  when  he  came  to  say  au  revoir  before 
leaving  town.  I  was  very  cold,  and  shivery, 
and  could  hardly  look  him  in  the  face;  but 
being  Tommy  he  didn't  mind,  and  kissed  my 
hands  only,  and  held  them  against  his  nice  fuzzy 
overcoat.  No  other  person  would  ever  have 
known  that  I  was  all  right  when  I  was  like  that. 
Tommy ! 

I  was  going  to  my  dancing  class  that  night 
and  I  was  all  dressed  in  my  pink  and  baby  blue 
dancing  frock  with  the  big  butterfly  bow  of  tulle 
at  its  back.  It  was  an  informal  subscription 


APRIL  105 

class,  and  this  was  the  last  of  the  dancing.  Mother 
wanted  me  to  go  because  it  had  taken  quite  an 
effort  on  her  part  to  get  me  into  the  thing  and 
I  wanted  to  please  her.  My  being  engaged  to 
Tommy  was  a  kind  of  blow  to  her,  of  course, 
because  I  am  the  only  daughter  she  has,  and  there- 
fore her  only  hope  of  having  a  millionaire  son- 
in-law  is  now  blasted.  She  really  does  like 
Lester  just  as  much  as  she  does  Tommy.  In 
fact,  there  are  some  ways  in  which  I  imagine 
they  are  more  congenial.  Lester  is  always  asking 
her  advice  about  matters  of  behavior  and  so  on, 
and  Tommy  only  jollies  her  along  and  saves 
all  his  serious  conversation  for  dad. 

I  thought  just  for  a  moment  that  I  couldn't 
go  to  the  dance,  but  Dolly  Grainger  was  coming 
for  me  in  her  car  and  I  had  given  my  word  so 
it  seemed  to  me  no  more  than  right  that  I  should. 
It  isn't  ever  square  to  break  an  engagement  that 
you  can  keep.  I  could  keep  this.  So  I  did. 

It  was  the  strangest  party.  The  girls  were 
divided  into  two  classes,  those  who  didn't  wish 
anybody  to  know  they  were  afraid,  and  those  who 


io6  OVER  HERE 

didn't  care  who  knew  they  were.  All  the  girls 
that  didn't  have  brothers  or  sweethearts  to  worry 
about,  were  planning  to  go  somewhere  away  from 
the  toast  for  their  summer  holiday,  to  save  them- 
selves from  invasion  and  bombardments.  All  the 
boys  were  more  or  less  pleased.  When  I  say  all, 
I  omit  Lester  who  was  pale  as  a  ghost,  and  Peter 
Ives  whose  chief  object  in  life  is  to  get  his  neck- 
ties and  stockings  to  harmonize  without  actually 
matching  each  other  too  vulgarly.  He  owes 
something  to  the  war  anyway;  he  can  wear  a 
wrist  watch  now  because  the  soldiers  in  the 
trenches  do.  If  they'd  only  use  violet  toilet  water, 
maybe  he'd  be  willing  to  go  over  and  help  them 
out.  This  idea  is  not  original  with  me.  It  is  with 
Eileen  Douglas. 

"What  do  you  think  about  the  war?"  I  said 
to  one  boy  that  I  was  fox-trotting  with.  Of 
course  you  really  don't  see  much  of  the  girls  at 
a  dance. 

"I  think  it's  a  pretty  good  idea,"  he  said. 

"But  think  of  the  misery  it  will  precipitate 
us  into." 


APRIL  107 

"Why  not?"  he  asked. 

"Wouldn't  it  be  better  to  stay  neutral  and  be 
able  to  give  food  and  all  kinds  of  supplies  to  those 
in  need?" 

"Not  on  your  tintype.  You  don't -really  think 
so  either,  do  you?" 

"No,"  I  said,  greatly  to  my  own  surprise,  "I 
don't." 

We  put  in  a  few  tango  steps  in  silence. 

"Will  you  go?"  I  asked. 

"Did  you  think  I  wouldn't?"  he  retorted. 

"You  wouldn't  go  if  you  were — engaged, 
would  you?" 

"All  the  more." 

"Why?" 

"Any  girl  I'd  get  engaged  to  would  want  me 
to  go." 

"Are  you  sure?" 

"Sure  I'm  sure." 

"I  don't  understand  how  a  man  can  feel  that 
way,"  I  said. 

"You  wouldn't  want  a  man  to  feel  any  other 
way?" 


io8  OVER  HERE 

I  evaded  that  issue,  which  was  not  one  I  cared 
to  elaborate  on,  of  course. 

When  I  got  home  I  found  mother  and  father 
sitting  up  and  staring  at  each  other  in  a  ghoulish 
way.  They  looked  so  terribly  depressing  that  I 
hailed  them  with  a  semblance  of  merriment  at 
least. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "the  world  hasn't  come  to  an 
end  yet" 

Then  Tommy  stepped  out  from  the  window 
embrasure  and  my  heart  stood  still.  He  held  out 
his  arms,  and  I  went  straight  into  them  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  to  my  surprise  and  chagrin 
began  to  weep  there. 

"Oh!  my  little  girl,"  Tommy  said.  "Oh!  my 
darling." 

"Poor  baby,"  father  said. 

"Tommy,  how  could  you?"  mother  moaned. 
"Why  couldn't  you  have  waited?  She  is  so 
young." 

"I  promise  you,  I  swear  to  you,"  Tommy  said 
over  my  head,  "that  I  won't  sacrifice  her." 

"How  can  you  not?"  mother  moaned  again. 


APRIL  109 

"I  won't  go,"  Tommy  said,  "unless  I  have  to." 

"You'd  never  have  to,"  mother  said ;  "there'll 
be  plenty  of  ways  out.  You  ought  to  let  the  men 
who  are  free  of  responsibility  go  in  your  place." 

"I  will,"  said  Tommy. 

I  flung  my  arms  around  him  of  my  own  ac- 
cord for  the  first  time.  "No,  you  won't,"  I  said. 

Tommy  held  me  off  and  looked  at  me. 

"Beth,"  he  said  sternly,  "what  do  you  mean?" 

"What  do  you  think  I  mean?" 

"Do  you  mean  you  want  me  to  go,  Beth?" 

"I  mean  you've  got  to  go,  Tommy,"  I  said. 

Father  said,  "Oh !  my  God !"  but  Tommy  just 
held  me  still  and  looked  at  me — and  looked  at 
me.  Then  slowly  his  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"It's  all  right,  dear,"  I  whispered  to  him,  "we 
love  each  other,  and  we  must  do  right.  Our  coun- 
try needs  us." 

"You  don't  want  him  to  go — to  enlist  at  once  ?" 
mother  broke  in  horrified. 

"He  won't  have  to  go  right  away,"  I  reassured 
her.  Of  course,  I  had  found  out  all  about  these 
prospects  weeks  before.  "He  hasn't  even  a  com- 


no  OVER  HERE 

mission  yet.  He'll  have  to  go  back  to  Plattsburg 
for  a  while,  and  trust  to  luck  to  get  over  as  soon 
as  possible." 

Father  came  and  stood  with  his  arm  over 
Tommy's  shoulder. 

"I'm  a  proud  man,  Tommy,"  he  said,  looking 
down  at  me  tenderly. 

"So  am  I, — father,"  Tommy  replied,  smiling 
at  him. 

"I  had  no  idea  you  would  take  it  like  that, 
Beth,"  he  said  to  me  when  we  were  alone. 

"I  hadn't  either,  Tommy,"  I  said,  "but  there 
is  one  condition  attached  to  it,"  I  added  slowly, 
"that  I  didn't  like  to  mention  before  mother  and 
father." 

"And  that  is?" 

"That  you  will  marry  me  before  you  go." 

"I  can't  do  that." 

"You  can't  not  do  it." 

"I  wouldn't  do  such  a  thing." 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  "don't  you  know  that  I'm 
your  wife  anyway?" 

"Yes,"  he  said.    "I  know  that— now." 


APRIL  in 

"Can  you  stop  me  marrying  you  then  by  law, 
if  I  want  to?" 

"No,"  he  said  after  a  pause,  "I  can't,  I  sup- 
pose." 

"Don't  you  want  to  marry  me?"  I  said. 
"Please,  please,  please  tell  me  so." 

!And  so  he  said  that  he  did,  and  comforted  me. 

It  seems  very  strange  that  before  I  saw 
Tommy  I  didn't  understand  how  I  felt  or  what 
I  wanted  to  do,  and  that  after  I  saw  him  I  knew 
perfectly,  so  that  I  could  make  it  clear  to  every 
one.  I  was  selfish  in  my  love  at  first,  but  I  am 
not  that  way  any  more.  Whether  Tommy  is 
with  me  or  not  doesn't  matter  so  much, — what 
matters  is  that  we  belong  to  each  other;  and  I 
know  that  God  will  take  care  of  him  for  me 
wherever  he  is.  We  mustn't  try  to  do  our  bit, — 
that  isn't  enough.  We  must  do  our  all.  It  would 
be  a  good  deal  easier  not  to  believe  this,  but  it 
wouldn't  be  right.  That's  how  I  really  feel,  only 
I  had  to  be  in  Tommy's  arms  again  before  I 
knew  it. 


ii2  OVER  HERE 

Well,  I  think  it's  a  good  thing  to  be  married 
when  you  are  young  because  your  husband  can 
educate  you  then.  I  have  made  some  mistakes 
that  I  should  have  been  perfectly  mortified  to 
make  with  anybody  but  Tommy.  I  also  have 
done  some  humiliating  things  that  I  was  sorry 
Tommy  had  to  realize.  For  instance,  I  was 
offended,  on  account  of  my  bringing  up,  I  sup- 
pose, when  Tommy  stuck  his  face  in  my  door  a 
few  days  after  we  were  married,  with  shaving 
lather  on  it.  Instead  of  laughing  he  wiped  off 
the  soap  and  came  in  and  sat  on  the  edge  of  the 
bed  and  argued  with  me.  He  said  that  he  was 
just  the  same  as  my  father  now,  only  a  little 
more  so,  and  that  conventions  between  us  had 
therefore  changed,  but  that  I  had  only  to  tell  him 
when  the  least  little  bit  of  a  thing  disturbed  me, 
and  we  would  get  it  fixed  up. 

"I  don't  mean  to  be  silly,  Tommy,"  I  said, 
"but  I  don't  know  anything  at  all  about  being 
married."  , 

"We'll  just  have  to  work  it  out  together,"  he 
said. 


APRIL  113 

We  were  in  a  hotel  overlooking  the  park — 
only  for  a  week — but  neither  Tommy  nor  I  ever 
admitted  that  the  week  wasn't  a  lifetime  or  that 
it  was  coming  to  an  end.  Most  of  the  time  I 
didn't  believe  that  it  was.  I  felt  that  I  was  going 
with  Tommy  everywhere  for  the  rest  of  his  life 
the  way  his  right  arm  was. 

We  were  married  on  France  Day,  which  Gov- 
ernor Whitman  appointed  to  celebrate  our  friend- 
ship with  France  on  the  anniversary  of  the  day 
Lafayette  sailed  to  fight  by  the  side  of  Washing- 
ton. Just  think !  I  went  down  to  Union  Square 
and  put  a  flower  from  my  bouquet  at  the  foot  of 
the  statue  there.  Tommy  said  he  would  take 
me  to  the  Cafe  Lafayette  for  my  wedding  break- 
fast if  I  wanted  to  go,  but  I  told  him  that  I  was 
too  grown  up  now  to  want  to  do  such  a  far- 
fetched thing. 

We  were  married  in  St.  Bartholomew's  with 
nobody  but  ourselves  and  families  and  the  organ- 
ist. It  was  one  of  the  very  first  war  weddings, 
but  we  didn't  advertise  it  as  such.  It  wasn't 
very  much  like  anything  I  had  ever  imagined.  I 


H4  OVER  HERE 

really  didn't  notice  what  the  church  looked  like, 
nor  which  of  our  combined  relations  appeared, 
and  which  didn't.  I  wore  a  white  broadcloth  suit 
and  seal  furs  and  a  turban  of  seal  with  some 
violets  on  it,  and  my  bouquet  was  violets  and 
orchids  and  lavender  sweet  peas.  I  don't  know 
why,  but  I  didn't  want  any  brighter  colors.  All 
during  the  ceremony  I  was  having  a  little  private 
ceremony  of  my  own.  "I  am  being  married  to 
Tommy,"  I  said  over  and  over  and  over  again 
thousands  of  times.  When  I  said,  "I  do,"  it  came 
out  loud  and  ringing.  When  Tommy  said,  "I 
do,"  the  tears  brimmed  over  my  eyes  and  ran 
down  on  my  flowers. 

Afterward  we  went  to  Sherry's.  I  made  the 
mortifying  mistake  of  drinking  my  own  health 
when  "The  Bride"  was  proposed,  and  Mrs.  God- 
frey looked  very  superior.  Still  she  was  nice 
to  me,  all  things  considered,  and  Mrs.  Richard- 
son was  darling. 

"Forgive  me  for  marrying  Tommy,"  I  whis- 
pered to  her.  "I'm  only  doing  it  because  I  can't 


APRIL  115 

help  it."  I  felt  very  apologetic  to  the  Richard- 
sons  on  account  of  the  circumstances. 

"I  wouldn't  have  forgiven  you  if  you  hadn't," 
she  wnispered  back. 

Lester  came  to  see  me  with  the  others  after 
we  went  back  to  the  house.  I  had  no  idea  that  he 
would  when  I  invited  him,  but  of  course  I  couldn't 
leave  him  out  very  well,  and  I  wanted  just  a 
few  of  my  best  friends  in.  He  looked  so  pale 
that  I  excused  myself  and  took  him  off  into  my 
den  a  minute. 

"Elizabeth,  would  you  like  to  have  me  enlist  ?" 
he  said. 

I  thought. 

"No,  not  for  me,"  I  said. 

"It's  all  I  can  do  for  you  now." 

"You  can't  do  it  for  me,"  I  said,  "until  you 
do  it  for  yourself." 

"I'm  afraid  I  never  shall  then,"  he  said, 
with  a  wan  smile.  "Elizabeth,  do  you  love  Tom 
Richardson  ?" 

"Why  would  I  have  married  him,"  I  said, 
"unless  I  did?" 


n6  OVER  HERE 

"Oh!  I  don't  know.  You're  so  interested  in 
the  war,  and  everything.  I  never  saw  much  in 
him." 

"Well,  he's  my  husband  now,  Lester,"  I  said, 
smiling.  I  wanted  to  put  him  at  his  ease  because 
he  was  so  very  much  broken  up.  I  had  an  in- 
spiration. "Listen,  Lester,"  I  said,  "would  you 
like  to  kiss  me?" 

He  faltered. 

"It's  your  last  chance,"  I  reminded  him. 

"Would  he  mind?"  he  said,  palpitating. 

I  shook  my  head. 

When  it  came  to  the  point  he  couldn't  do  it 
he  was  so  upset,  and  I  put  my  arms  around  him 
and  kissed  him  on  his  cheek  and  his  forehead, 
and  petted  him  until  he  felt  better. 

"I  shall  never  forget  this,  Elizabeth,"  he  said. 

"I'm  glad  you  won't,  Lester." 

"It  gives  me  an  entirely  new  glimpse  of  your 
character,"  he  groaned. 

"It  does  me,  too,"  I  acknowledged. 

And  then  I  went  back  to  my  Tommy. 


CHAPTER  VII 

MAY 

IN  a  way  it  is  humiliating  to  say  that  you 
could  only  afford  one  week  of  honeymoon, 
but  Tommy  and  I  made  up  our  minds  that  we 
ought  not  to  stay  at  our  luxurious  quarters  until 
he  went  to  Plattsburg  on  the  fifteenth  of  May, 
especially  since  he  has  to  be  running  in  and  out  of 
town  settling  up  his  business  in  different  ways. 
So  I  went  to  the  Richardsons'  to  stay  until  he 
left.  They  were  planning  to  give  up  their  lovely 
house  and  go  to  live  with  Mrs.  Godfrey  in  her 
apartment. 

"It's  too  bad,"  I  said  to  Father  Richardson, 
"when  you're  so  comfortable  here.  I  wish  you 
could  stay." 

I  think  he  felt  the  meaning  behind  my  words, 
for  I  thought  that  perhaps  I  had  done  wrong  to 
throw  my  influence  toward  Tommy's  going  to 
war  instead  of  against  it  for  their  sakes. 
117 


n8  OVER  HERE 

"There  is  only  one  way  in  which  I  could  be 
made  uncomfortable  now,  daughter,"  he  said, 
"and  that  is  by  having  a  son  who  failed  in  his 
duty  at  this  crisis." 

"I  feel  that  way,  too,"  I  said.  "I  shouldn't 
like  to  have  a  son  or  a  husband  that  didn't  want 
to  enlist." 

"We  come  from  a  fighting  line,"  he  said 
proudly;  "some  time  I  should  like  to  go  over 
with  you  some  of  the  family  records  and  per- 
sonal papers  of  certain  of  Tommy's  illustrious 
relatives." 

"I  should  be  proud  to,"  I  said. 

"Tommy's  wife  ought  to  be  familiar  with  the 
part  his  forebears  have  taken  in  the  making 
of  American  history." 

"What's  all  this  talk  of  wives?"  Mother  Rich- 
ardson asked  playfully,  coming  into  the  library 
where  we  were  sitting,  with  her  hands  full  of 
soldier's  pajama  cloth.  "All  I  see  here  is  a  little 
girl  with  her  hair  down  her  back,  curled  up  like 
a  kitten." 

I  laughed  because  I  was  wearing  one  of  my 


MAY  119 

blue  pinafore  dresses  that  cross  and  tie  behind, 
and  my  hair  in  two  pigtails  the  way  Tommy 
likes  it  best.  I  wore  it  up  all  the  first  week  I 
was  married,  of  course,  but  he  begged  me  to  take 
it  down  again  for  informal  occasions.  So  I  did. 

"I  can  look  twenty-five,"  I  said,  "and  when- 
ever I  go  up  to  visit  Tommy  at  Plattsburg  I  am 
going  to." 

"So  that  every  one  will  say,  'What  a  charm- 
ing but  mature  woman  Captain  Richardson's 
bride  is.'  " 

"By  the  time  he  gets  to  be  a  captain  I  won't 
be  a  bride,"  I  cried.  "I'll  be  an  old  married 
woman." 

"When  do  you  expect  that  will  be?" 

Mrs.  Richardson  was  teasing  me,  but  I  like  to 
be  teased  in  that  lovely  way  of  hers. 

"In  three  months,"  I  argued.  "Wait  and  see 
what  a  transformation  can  take  place  in  me  in 
three  months." 

Mrs.  Richardson  both  smiled  and  sighed. 

"I  don't  want  any  kind  of  transformation 
to  take  place  in  you,"  she  sai'd. 


120  OVER  HERE 

I  don't  think  her  daughter  would  altogether 
subscribe  to  that  sentiment.  She'd  prefer  to  have 
me  look  like  Theda  Bara  as  a  member  of  the  Rus- 
sian nobility,  with  a  stare  that  wouldn't  come  off. 
It's  no  use  pretending  that  she  didn't  want  Tommy 
to  marry  a  luscious  society  dame.  She  did. 

The  Richardson  family  don't  talk  any  more 
about  the  war  than  we  did  at  home — they 
couldn't — but  they  seem  somehow  more  intimate 
with  it.  Of  course,  Mr.  Richardson  knows  Wil- 
son and  all  that,  but  that  isn't  what  I  mean.  He 
gets  personally  excited  because  Balfour  broke  the 
precedent  of  a  century  and  a  half  by  addressing 
the  House, — Balfour  being  a  British  representa- 
tive, and  the  president  going  and  sitting  in  the 
gallery  in  order  to  let  him.  He  was  so  thrilled 
at  having  a  marshal  of  France  in  New  York 
he  could  hardly  eat  his  lunch:  and  still  he  didn't 
read  any  of  the  speeches  the  commissions  made. 
He  said  he  was  sure  they  said  all  the  suitable  and 
proper  things.  I  could  just  see  father  devouring 
them  bit  by  bit  and  making  texts  for  his  dis- 
courses out  of  them,  and  yet  I  knew  he  wouldn't 


MAY  121 

go  so  far  out  of  his  way  to  look  at  either 
Joffre  or  Balfour  or  Viviani. 

I,  of  course,  would  and  did.  I  not  only  stood 
on  Fifth  Avenue  for  hours  waiting  for  the  pro- 
cession that  was  leading  Joffre  to  the  home  of 
Henry  Frick, — I  hope  he  liked  the  nice  strip  of 
green  turf  on  Mr.  Frick's  front  lawn — but  I 
went  with  Eileen  Douglas  up  to  Columbia  as  an 
alleged  student  to  see  him  receive  his  honorary 
degree  there.  Joffre  was  a  darling,  he  looked 
like  somebody's  fierce  old  grandfather.  Tommy 
went  to  the  lawyers'  dinner  to  Viviani,  but  of 
course  he  was  too  busy  to  trapes  around  with 
me  any.  It  was  only  two  days  before  he  went 
to  Plattsburg. 

It  was  a  funny  thing  that  in  one  part  of  me  I 
didn't  so  much  mind  having  Tommy  go.  I  don't 
know  how  to  explain  it.  Of  course,  the  other 
part  of  me  was  almost  dying  of  it.  I  think  I 
had  had  so  much  pure  happiness  in  two  weeks  of 
having  Tommy  all  to  myself  that  I  was  almost 
stupefied  with  it — anesthetized,  I  mean.  I  had 
rested  in  Tommy's  arms,  until  I  felt  that  being 


122  OVER  HERE 

there  actually  wasn't  the  point.  The  point  was 
that  they  were  my  arms,  and  I  belonged  there. 
It  was  like  coming  into  the  ownership  of  a  per- 
fectly good  house.  You'd  have  it  just  the  same 
if  you  weren't  in  it  every  minute.  In  fact,  you 
couldn't  expect  to  be.  So,  I  got  a  lot  of  undue 
credit  for  my  bravery  in  letting  Tommy  go ;  and 
afterward  when  the  real  ache  for  him  set  in  no- 
body knew  it. — Tommy! 

I  went  home  on  the  eighteenth  and  it  was 
a  peculiar  home-going.  Mother  was  at  the  Red 
Cross  doing  more  emergency  work  for  them, 
and  father  and  I  and  the  Conscription  Bill  sat 
down  to  dinner  together.  Father  was  father, 
and  cook  was  cook,  and  Bessie — our  half  a  serv- 
ant who  comes  in  only  afternoons — was  Bessie: 
but  /  was  changed.  I  was  Mrs.  Richardson,  the 
well  known,  in  family  circles,  war  bride,  and  I 
couldn't  get  over  it.  Father  and  I  were  very 
merry,  however,  and  I  tried  to  talk  to  him  about 
the  way  I  thought  Tommy  would  have  talked, 
until  Bessie  brought  in  the  dessert  which  was 
prune  whip — Tommy's  favorite  dessert  and  mine 


MAY  123 

too, — and  the  strain  was  too  much  for  me.    So  I 
fled. 

What  do  I  care  about  the  British  gains  south- 
east of  Loos?  Or  the  Hindenburg  line?  This 
war  is  getting  to  be  like  a  stupid  game  that  nobody 
beats,  and  the  Germans  go  on  killing  everybody 
in  sight  and  those  that  are  hidden  in  trenches  too. 
I  am  not  going  to  read  any  more  war  books. 
They  make  my  head  ache.  Thirteen  days  of 
Tommy's  three  months  are  gone  already.  I'm 
going  to  see  him  next  month  if  everybody  thinks 
it's  best.  One  unexpected  thing  about  my  mar- 
riage is  that  it  rather  curtails  my  freedom.  I 
was  getting  to  have  a  very  good  time  being  grown 
up.  I  put  all  my  theories  into  practise  and  was 
very  firm  with  father  and  mother.  I  even  went 
to  matinees  alone.  One  must  see  war  plays — even 
if  it  is  rather  criminal  to  spend  money  on  one's 
own  pleasures  at  this  time  of  strife,  and  I  did 
other  things  of  equal  harmlessness  that  every 
one  concerned  was  too  busy  to  notice;  but  now 
since  I  wear  a  wedding  ring  I'm  a  more  general 
object  of  attention  and  therefore  advice,  and 


124  OVER  HERE 

therefore  actual  admonitions  not  to  do  things.  I 
know  it's  foolish  to  write  to  newspapers  and 
magazines  about  personal  problems  but  I've  been 
thinking  seriously  of  doing  so,  guardedly  and 
under  a  nom  de  plume  of  course,  just  to  inquire 
at  what  age  it  isn't  perfectly  barbarous  for  a  wife 
to  stop  minding  her  mother  and  father. 

General  conditions  haven't  changed  so  terribly. 
We're  still  pretty  much  alive  and  kicking  in  this 
country.  It's  still  their  war  over  across  the  ocean, 
and  we  hope  and  pray  over  here  that  we  shan't 
have  any  nearer  glimpse  of  its  privations.  Food 
has  practically  hit  the  sky,  though,  and  over  on 
the  East  Side  there  have  been  riots  and  things 
all  the  spring  about  onions  and  potatoes.  Also 
they  mobbed  City  Hall  one  day,  but  like  that 
character  of  Shakespeare's  we  so  often  hear  of, 
I  forget  which  one,  I  think  the  poor  things  rather 
"protest  too  much."  Father  says  they're  incited 
by  the  I.  W.  W.'s  and  the  labor  leaders  and  others 
of  Lester's  friends.  Anyway,  I  went  out  to  see 
their  parade  and  it  consisted  of  numbers  of 
enormously  fat  or  fattish  women  in  good  clean 


MAY  125 

clothes  with  shining  rosy  faces  marching  and 
carrying  banners  saying,  "Our  Children  Are 
Starving,"  and  in  a  van  behind  them  a  lot  of  robust 
children  enjoying  the  scenery.  I  suppose  the  real- 
ly starving  ones  weren't  able  or  presentable 
enough  to  parade. 

It's  perfectly  awful  to  say  but  I  don't  care 
so  much  who  starves  if  it  isn't  Americans  that  I 
know  and  like  or  the  French  that  I  know  I  would 
like.  All  these  Hungarians  and  Jews  are  much 
less  near  to  me  than  the  poor  Belgians,  for  in- 
stance. A  very  funny  thing  happened  to  me 
when  I  was  watching  that  parade,  though,  and  I 
don't  see  how  it  could  have  been  an  emotional  ef- 
fect since  I  didn't  feel  any  emotion,  but  I  keeled 
over  in  a  one  second  faint — a  thing  I  have  never 
done  before  in  all  my  life.  I  didn't  tell  anybody 
because  I  was  so  ashamed  of  it, — but  is  Tommy 
getting  an  unhealthy  wife?  He  wouldn't  like 
that,  I  know.  Also,  I  am  not  so  altogether  pleased 
with  food  as  I  was.  That,  I  think,  is  just  natural 
pining.  If  you  wake  up  in  the  morning  and  cry 
for  your  husband  every  day  between  the  hours 


126  OVER  HERE 

of  six  and  seven  thirty,  why  it  would  seem  logical 
that  you  wouldn't  feel  the  same  appetite  for 
breakfast.  I  still  opine  that  I'm  not  a  crying 
girl,  and  I  wouldn't  have  Tommy  know  for  any- 
thing that  I  ever  shed  a  tear  on  his  behalf. 
"Whither  thou  goest  I  will  go;"  I  can't  go  to 
Plattsburg  with  him,  but  his  people  are  my  peo- 
ple— I  should  say  they  were — and  hi's  God  is  my 
God  even  though  I've  had  to  adopt  the  Lord  God 
of  Battles,  to  whom  I  was  so  much  averse  a  little 
while  ago. 

Well,  I  am  getting  a  very  unworthy  prayer 
in  my  heart.  Tommy  would  think  it  was  un- 
worthy, but  is  it  so  much  so,  I  wonder?  I'm 
praying  that  this  God  I've  adopted  will  stop  the 
war,  now  that  I've  let  Tommy  enroll  in  it.  Amer- 
ica has  done  her  part.  She  has  subscribed  herself 
to  it.  She'll  send  her  men  across  the  water  if 
necessary,  but  maybe  it  won't  be  necessary.  That's 
my  hope. 

Before  you  are  married  you  don't  know  how 
much  you  need  a  husband.  Afterward  some  of 
the  things  you  thought  at  that  time  become  null 


MAY  127 

and  void.  Not  having  had  your  husband  with 
you  every  minute  you  then  gaily  speed  him  on  his 
figurative  way  after  the  ceremony;  but  married 
people  ought  not  to  be  torn  apart  from  each 
other — war  or  no  war.  It  isn't  right. 

George  has  joined  the  Navy.  I  just  simply 
don't  see  how  he  could  wear  that  sailor  suit  and 
childish  hat.  He  looks  about  as  distinguished  and 
refined  as  our  milk  man,  but  he's  as  proud  as  a 
peacock  in  it.  He  wants  to  marry  somebody, 
but  I  told  him  not  to. 

"Why  shouldn't  I  get  married?"  he  said. 
"You  did,"  which  of  course  is  a  logical  argument. 

"I  don't  think  you'd  better,  George,"  I  said, 
"especially  since  you  haven't  anybody  in  particu- 
lar in  mind." 

"I  could  pick  one  out,"  he  said. 

"Don't  marry  for  the  sake  of  getting  mar- 
ried," I  said. 

"Why?" 

"George,"  I  said  earnestly,  "there  are  lots 
of  good  reasons." 

But  he  simply  could  not  see  that  I  was  right. 


128  OVER  HERE 

He  rather  wanted  me  to  sound  out  Dolly  Grainger 
for  him,  but  Dolly  gets  into  my  family  only  over 
my  dead  body :  besides  she's  out  for  higher  game 
than  a  sailor  suit  and  baggy  trousers  wrapped 
round  the  inconsiderable  figure  of  my  cousin 
George.  Roland  might  suit  her  better,  as  he  has 
quite  a  lot  of  money  of  his  own,  but  I'm  not  on 
very  good  terms  with  him,  as  he  has  never  spoken 
a  word  to  me  since  my  marriage  and  wouldn't 
come  to  the  wedding.  He  sent  me  a  beautiful  rug, 
though.  Persian,  with  a  rose-color  background 
and  a  blue  border.  It  looks  worth  about  a  million 
dollars.  I  want  a  home  with  Tommy  to  put  it  in. 
"You  must  remember,  dear,"  Tommy  writes, 
"that  this  is  literally  a  school  for  officers,  up 
here," — in  that  little  peak  on  the  map  way  up 
on  the  top  of  New  York  State, — "every  hour  and 
minute  of  the  day  is  spent  in  learning  to  do  some- 
thing that  is  to  be  done  by  the  men  under  our 
charge,  a  little  later.  I've  been  through  the  ropes 
before  so  it  comes  very  easy  to  me.  I  think  I've 
got  the  trick,  some  way.  A;  lot  of  things  come 
perfectly  natural  to  me  that  give  some  of  the 


MAY  129 

other  fellows  a  heluva  (s'cuse  me,  dear)  lot  of 
trouble.  I  think  General  Richardson  handed  me 
down  something  that  I  never  knew  I  had  before. 
It  can't  be  any  muddier  in  France  than  it  is  here. 
I  came  in  from  a  ten-mile  hike  an  hour  or  so 
ago  the  muddiest  man  that  the  American  skies 
ever  looked  down  upon.  I  had  my  picture  taken 
to  show  you.  You  will  see  that  it  looks  more  like 
a  gingerbread  man  than  it  does  your  Tommy." 

The  rest  was  all  about  other  and  more  per- 
sonal things.  Romeo  and  Juliet  didn't  have  very 
much  on  us  in  some  ways — to  put  it  slangily. 
Tommy  has  made  me  a  map  of  Plattsburg  and 
his  quarters,  so  I  can  follow  him  around  with  the 
point  of  a  pencil  when  I  am  going  over  his  let- 
ters. 

I'm  trying  to  harden  my  mind,  but  it  won't 
stay  hard  for  long  at  a  time.  I  simply  can't 
bear  rifle  practise  any  more.  To  shoot  at  a  clay 
pigeon  upsets  my  nerves.  Maybe  I  wouldn't  be 
so  timid  about  a  Boche,  I  don't  know. 

Marcella  Harcourt  came  to  see  me  to-day  all 
dressed  in  black. 


1 3o  OVER  HERE 

"Your  brother?"  I  said. 

"No,"  she  said.    "My  friend." 

"Are  you  sure?" 

"Yes,  my  brother  wrote  me.    He — knew." 

Then  the  pitiful  tears  began  to  stream  down 
her  face. 

"Marcella,"  I  said,  "why  didn't  you  do  what 
I  did — marry  him?" 

"He  never  asked  me,"  she  said.  "I  don't 
think  he  cared  as  I  did, — and  now  I  shall  never 
know." 

"Don't  say  that,"  I  said  mechanically. 

"It's  true,"  she  said. 

But  while  I  was  comforting  her  a  terrible 
thing  was  taking  place  in  my  own  mind.  I  had 
decided  that  if  Marcella  loved  that  man  he  couldn't 
be  dead,  for  I  knew  from  my  own  experience  that 
two  people  who  loved  each  other  could  not  lose 
each  other  in  that  dreadful  way — so  soon.  I 
knew  it.  When  Marcella  told  me  that  her  friend 
was  really  dead  it  was  a  shock  to  me  but  when 
she  confessed  that  it  hadn't  been  a  mutual  love 
I  felt  relieved  in  that  part  of  me  devoted  to  me 


MAY 


and  Tommy  exclusively.  I  don't  claim  that  this 
was  a  worthy  or  holy  way  to  feel,  but  it  was 
what  I  felt. 

Nobody  could  be  sorrier  or  perhaps  as  sorry 
for  Marcella  as  I  was,  however,  though  I  was 
a  little  glad  when  she  got  all  through  her  crying 
and  went  home.  That  kind  of  grief  keeps  on  and 
on  indefinitely  you  know,  and  I  was  expecting 
other  and  less  melancholy  guests  to  arrive  at  any 
moment.  They  were  Lester  and  Peter  Ives,  Billy 
and  Eileen  Douglas  and  Dolly  Grainger.  I  didn't 
get  up  any  party,  but  they  all  telephoned  at  differ- 
ent times  and  asked  to  come.  I  thought  it  would 
rather  bring  back  my  girlhood  days  if  I  allowed 
them  to  appear  in  a  bunch.  So  I  did. 

Eileen  and  Billy  appeared  first. 

Billy  kissed  me  gaily. 

"Welcome  to  the  order,"  she  said,  pointing  to 
my  wedding  ring.  "You'll  have  a  lot  better  time 
being  married  than  you  ever  had  single.  You 
mark  my  words." 

"I  expect  to,"  I  said. 

"You  can't  be  quite  so  useful  to  me,"  Eileen 


132  OVER  HERE 

sighed.  "I  did  think  it  would  be  such  larks  if 
we  could  have  gone  across  together  later." 

"That  wouldn't  have  come  off  anyway,"  I 
reassured  her.  "My  parents  consider  me  too 
young  to  go  to  France." 

"Though  old  enough  to  be  married,"  Billy 
laughed.  "They  say  the  nurses  are  having  the 
time  of  their  young  lives.  They  smoke  all  the 
soldiers'  cigarettes  and  send  back  home  for  more, 
which  they  also  smoke.  I'd  give  my  eyes  to  go 
with  Eileen." 

"Oh !  I  wouldn't  be  allowed  to  go  if  you  were 
going,"  Eileen  said  cheerfully.  "I'm  going  over 
there  to  work  seriously." 

"Well,  at  least  pick  up  all  the  scandal  you 
can  to  bring  home  to  me,"  Billy  implored. 

On  this  chatter  the  boys  came  in, — the  same 
old  boys.  Lester  had  just  the  same  things  to 
say  combined  with  some  minute  information  he 
had  picked  up  about  the  way  New  York  was 
policed,  which  we  all  know  anyway.  He  insisted 
on  reiterating  what  steps  would  be  taken  at  once 
if  New  York  were  attacked,  how  signals  were 


MAY  1133 

arranged  from  one  police  station  to  another  and 
where  the  emergency  camps  were  to  be  located 
and  all  that  dope. 

"Tell  us  that  there  is  a  net  in  New  York 
harbor  to  catch  submarines,  Lester,  and  that  all 
one  night  last  spring  the  port  of  New  York 
was  closed  while  they  were  mending  it,"  Billy 
said  satirically,  which  of  course  hurt  Lester's 
feelings,  whereupon  Peter  Ives  jumped  into  the 
breach.  Peter  may  be  lightweight  and  all  that, 
but  his  mother  certainly  brought  him  up  to  do 
and  say  the  polite  and  correct  things  in  an 
emergency. 

Dolly  Grainger  arrived  with  my  tousin 
George.  I  was  quite  amused  at  George's  enter- 
prise, though  a  little  angry  at  Dolly  for  taking 
the  trouble  to  string  him.  George  is  a  good  boy, 
but  he  is  not  affectionate  and  he  hasn't  any  real 
sense  of  humor,  two  things  which  I  consider  to 
be  essential  to  a  successful  existence  either  on 
one's  own  part  or  the  part  of  others  with  whom 
one  is  associated.  Dolly  is  frankly  pleased  with 
my  marriage  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  gives 


134  OVER  HERE 

her  one  more  of  her  own  set  for  chaperon.  She 
always  has  so  much  mischief  up  her  sleeve  that 
she  needs  a  collusive  chaperon  stationed  at  about 
every  block.  I  have  yet  to  tell  her  that  Tommy 
has  forbidden  my  being  a  chaperon  to  any  of  the 
crowd.  Bessie  brought  in  the  tea,  and  the  con- 
versation continued  in  the  same  old  familiar  way 
that  I  have  heard  ever  since  we  grew  old  enough 
to  run  around  together.  I  portioned  out  lemon 
and  sugar  and  passed  cocoanut  kisses  the  same 
way  I  have  always  done  when  they  dropped  in, — 
but  there  was  something  different  about  the  whole 
proceedings.  Something  had  happened  to  me, 
and  I  felt  it  more  and  more  as  the  eating  and 
drinking  progressed.  I  felt  it  even  more  than  I 
did  the  first  evening  when  father  and  I  had  din- 
ner alone  together.  The  whole  bunch  seemed  to 
grow  dim  and  fade  before  my  very  eyes,  and  noth- 
ing to  remain  but  a  bright  unwinking  fire  in  the 
fireplace,  and  me  alone  in  my  blue  and  white 
ruffled  dress  that  Tommy  likes  so  much. 

It  was  somewhat  electrifying  to  have  Mrs. 


MAY  135 

Godfrey  announced  in  the  midst  of  this  scene  of 
gay  and  intimate  persiflage.  She  came  in, 
dressed  in  golden  brown  broadcloth  and  seal,  and 
looking  as  if  she  had  just  stepped  out  of  a  pack- 
ing case  instead  of  a  wind-blown  avenue.  She 
was,  however,  very  pleasant  to  all  of  the  crowd. 
Even  if  she  does  say  the  most  inane  and  pointed 
things  to  people  when  she  first  sees  them  she 
certainly  knows  how  to  do  so.  She  is  a  picture 
to  look  at.  To  that  I  will  agree  anytime. 

"Tommy  seems  to  be  having  a  good  time, 
doesn't  he?"  she  inquired  in  a  sprightly  way  of 
me. 

"He's  working  pretty  hard,"  I  said. 

"Yes,  of  course.  Mrs.  Allensby  was  at  Platts- 
burg  over  the  week-end,  you  know." 

"Yes?"  I  said. 

"She  said  she  had  the  pleasure  of  taking 
Tommy  and  her  brother  out  in  her  motor  Sun- 
day afternoon." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "wasn't  it  kind  of  her?" 

Tommy  had  written  me  that  he  was  motoring 


136  OVER  HERE 

Sunday  afternoon  but  he  certainly  hadn't  men- 
tioned doing  so  with  Mrs.  Allensby  and  her 
brother. 

I  stood  upr  to  bid  one  after  another  good-by, 
and  they  had  the  usual  hard  time  breaking  away, 
parting  from  each  other  and  remembering  to  run 
back  and  say  little  silly  things  to  me.  Mrs.  God- 
frey went  last.  I  was  awfully  tired  of  standing  by 
that  time.  I  don't  know  why.  I  just  was. 

"When  are  you  going  up?"  was  my  sister-in- 
law's  parting  shot.  "Mrs.  Allensby  goes  up 
every  week.  You  must  meet  her  sometime." 

And  after  she  was  safely  out  of  the  door  I 
crumpled  up  on  the  floor  and  fainted  away,  and 
all  that  I  said  for  some  time  after  that,  accord- 
ing to  mother,  was: 

"I  want  my  husband,  I  want  my  husband,  I 
want  my  husband." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

JUNE 

TOMMY  has  married  a  very  ignorant  wife, 
which  is  a  pity  because  he  himself  is  so 
cultured  in  some  ways.  Of  course  I  speak 
French  and  German  and  had  a  lot  of  fun  doing 
chemistry  in  school  but  none  of  my  other  educa- 
tion, though  flung  at  me  hard  enough  at  the  time, 
seemed  to  stick.  I've  always  thought  it  didn't  mat- 
ter so  much  what  you  could  do  with  your  mind  if 
you  could  do  about  everything  with  your  body.  I 
thought  tennis  and  swimming  and  riding  like  a 
streak  were  about  all  there  was  to  it,  but  now  that 
I  am  getting  to  be  a  trifle  puny  and  having  aches 
and  pains  that  I  never  knew  anything  about  be- 
fore except  by  hearsay  I  am  worried  about  my 
poor  old  mind.  I  am  not  Tommy's  intellectual 
equal.  There's  no  use  talking.  I'm  not.  Also,  I 
know  very  little  that's  useful.  When  I  tried  to 
137 


138  OVER  HERE 

write  out  my  military  census  I  was  abashed  at 
what  I  couldn't  do  for  my  country. 

Then  I  don't  know  what  I  think,  and  that 
alarms  me.  I  am  getting  worried  for  fear  Tommy 
married  me  because  he  thought  I  knew  what  my 
attitude  was  in  a  great  many  matters  that  I  don't 
feel  stable  about  at  all.  He  sets  such  a  great  store 
by  my  sporting  instinct — and  after  all,  what  and 
where  is  it? 

Do  I  want  to  let  him  go  on  being  at  Plattsburg 
and  having  Mrs.  Allensby  up  there  every  week- 
end ?  Answer :  I  do  not. 

Am  I  crazy  for  him  to  get  his  commission  and 
go  over  and  join  Pershing  at  the  first  possible 
minute?  Answer:  I  am  not.  I  am  not. 

Do  I  follow  the  tampaigns  on  the  different 
fronts  with  a  map  and  a  pencil  with  enthusiasm 
and  intensity  ?  Answer :  No. 

Do  I  know  anything  about  this  much  discussed 
situation  in  the  Balkans  that  I  could  reel  off  at 
short  notice  ?  Could  I  even  define  a  Balkan  with- 
out referring  to  the  book  ?  Answer :  Well,  no — • 
Well,  no. 


JUNE  139 

Do  I  know  anything  about  the  Russian  Revo- 
lution to  speak  of — or  care?  Only  that  they 
revoluted  and  then  fought  about  it  and  that 
Kerensky  is  pronounced  with  the  accent  about 
equally  distributed  between  the  first  and  second 
syllables.  Tommy  won't  have  to  go  to  Russia 
not  by  the  wildest  stretch  of  the  imagination — so 
no  to  the  caring  end  of  it. 

What  good  am  I,  therefore  to  a  man  like 
Thomas  Richardson,  Junior?  Answer:  Not  very 
much  at  the  most  ambiguous  estimate. 

The  only  way  I  can  keep  his  love  is  to  pre- 
tend to  him  that  I  am  worthier  than  I  am,  I 
suppose, — and  healthier.  When  I  get  up  to 
Plattsburg  and  actually  see  him  it  may  be  very 
hard  to  keep  up  the  bluff,  but  I  am  going  to  try  to. 
And  in  the  meanwhile  I  am  entering  into  all  the 
serious  discussions  I  can  get  into  with  my  father 
in  order  to  train  my  mind  and  exercise  it  more 
adequately. 

"Father,"  I  said  the  other  day,  "what  do  you 
really  think  about  this  being  a  war  of  the  capital- 
ists? Do  you  or  don't  you  think  that  England 


140  OVER  HERE 

got  into  it  because  of  her  greedy  desire  to  gobble 
up  a  few  indemnities?" 

"Don't  be  silly,  dear,"  father  said  somewhat 
unflatteringly.  "All  that  patter  comes  from  the 
pacifists  and  the  propagandists.  This  is  the 
struggle  of  right  against  might,  and  don't  you 
forget  it,  Piggie,  no  matter  what  arguments  your 
rejected  suitors  may  set  forth." 

"I  won't,"  I  said  meekly;  "besides  I  never 
talk  war  with  Lester  any  more.  But,  father,"  I 
continued,  resolved  on  prolonging  the  conversa- 
tion by  some  pretext  or  other  for  the  sake  of  my 
mental  poise  and  development,  "don't  you  think 
this  will  be  the  last  war  of  the  world?  Don't 
you  think  that  what  we  are  fighting  now  is  a 
gigantic  struggle  for  everlasting  peace?  What 
with  all  our  fearsome  engines  of  destruction  don't 
you  feel  that  this  is  the  last  great  combat  of  the 
ages?" 

"No,  I  don't,"  father  said  shortly,  "nor  I 
trust  do  you,  in  spite  of  your  fluffing.  Stop  and 
think  a  minute.  In  the  last  three  thousand  years 
there  has  been  a  bare  five  hundred  free  of  war. 


JUNE  141 

Are  you  and  I  so  arrogant  that  we  can  assume 
that  anything  that  happens  in  the  span  of  our 
meager  little  lives  can  change  the  majestic  habit 
of  evolutionary  progress  ?" 

"Well, — no,"  I  said,  "I  don't  suppose  so.  You 
think  then,  dad,  that  we  can  get  just  so  far  and 
no  farther.  That  civilization  climbs  up  to  its 
apex  and  then  retreats  again  like  the  noble  king 
of  France?" 

"Something  like  that,"  father  smiled;  "is  that 
a  very  discouraging  thought  to  you?" 

"Well, — no,"  I  said,  "not  so  very.  If  one 
great  clean-up  could  cure  the  world  of  everything 
that  was  the  matter  with  it  I  suppose  there 
wouldn't  be  much  sense  in  propagating  the  spec- 
ies. There  wouldn't  be  any  real  work  for  the  spec- 
ies to  do  when  they  got  propagated." 

"Exactly."  Father  began  to  take  an  interest 
in  me  at  this.  "Life  is  a  struggle  for  life.  Re- 
move the  struggle  and  you  have  a  static — a  non- 
existent world." 

"I  know  it,"  I  said,  "but  what  use  is  it,  then, 
father  ?  What  do  we  do  it  for,  in  your  opinion — 


142  OVER  HERE 

why  all  this  getting  up  our  muscle  and  then 
the  end?" 

"Our  spiritual  muscle  ?" 

"Well  — yes." 

"There  is  usually  something  to  use  our  muscle 
on  in  this  world  when  we  come  into  full  use  of 
our  functions.  Why  wouldn't  that  argument  hold 
good  with  things  that  are  not  temporal  ?" 

"Well,  it  ought  to,"  I  said,  thinking.  "I 
think  it  does,  father.  Most  everything  we  want 
is — somewhere?  We  want  Heaven  and  a  life 
beyond;  why  isn't  that  somewhere  too?" 

"I  trust  it  is,"  father  said;  then  looking  at 
me  keenly  he  added,  "I've  noticed  one  thing, 
daughter ;  since  this  war  began,  my  personal  faith 
in  things  seems  to  be  augmented  rather  than  les- 
sened. I  am  not  a  religious  man  in  any  sense  of 
the  word,  but  1  am  more  nearly  a  religious  man 
than  I  have  been  since  I  reached  my  maturity. 
How  do  you  account  for  that?" 

"I  don't  account  for  it,"  I  said,  "but  I  know 
what  you  mean.  I  say  my  prayers  every  night, 
now.  For  a  long  time  I  didn't!" 


JUNE  143 

"I  said  mine  the  other  night,"  he  said  a  trifle 
sheepishly.  Then  he  changed  the  subject.  I  am 
somewhat  superstitious  about  speaking  of  the  life 
beyond.  I  used  to  think  that  it  usually  meant 
that  some  one  was  going  to  die,  but  I  guess  the 
great  war  has  brought  all  those  deeper  subjects 
to  be  more  a  matter  of  general  conversation  than 
formerly.  Besides  people  are  dying  all  the  time, 
whether  they  are  people  you  know  or  not.  Every 
morning  paper  contains  the  account  of  somebody's 
relative  passing  along  if  it's  only  massed  in  under 
a  huge  head-line  that  says  "German  Troops  in  the 
Messines  Forced  to  Abandon  Positions."  Some- 
body's brother  or  lover  or  other  loved  one  paid  the 
toll. 

Plattsburg!  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  has 
seen  my  own  country  first,  or  even  last  or  all  the 
time.  I've  been  to  Palm  Beach  and  to  Chicago 
and  to  our  cottage  at  the  seashore,  and  most  of  my 
other  traveling  has  been  commuting.  I've  never 
seen  any  mountains  but  the  Berkshire  hills,  be- 
fore these  Adirondacks — these  boiling,  steaming, 


144  OVER  HERE 

wrapped  around  in  blue  mist  and  gray  vapor, 
mountains,  all  intimately  named  and  conversed 
about  as  if  they  were  friends.  They  are  not 
friends  of  mine  yet.  Under  their  distant  shadow 
my  husband  lives  in  barracks  and  dresses  in  khaki 
and  spends  all  his  waking  hours  in  a  martial  rou- 
tine. I  arrived  on  a  Saturday  morning  accompan- 
ied by  Mrs.  Richardson  and  did  I  see  my  Tommy's 
face  waiting  at  the  station  to  greet  me?  Well,  I 
didn't  expect  to.  I  knew  all  about  the  rules  and 
regulations  up  there  of  course,  but  that  didn't 
make  them  a  whit  easier  to  abide  by. 

"When  is  a  husband  not  a  husband?" 
"When  he's  in  military  training."  I  repeat 
this  silly  and  meaningless  conundrum  over  and 
over  to  myself  as  if  it  had  some  real  significance. 
After  that  I  hum  the  melancholy  chorus,  "For 
the  duration  of  the  war.  For  the  duration  of 
the  war."  I  did  not  tell  my  father  why  I  had 
begun  to  say  my  prayers  again,  and  I  shall  not  tell 
Tommy  even  that  I  am  saying  them. 

It  was  a  wonderful  reunion  that  night.    I  did 
not  go  to  camp,  but  I  went  in  next  day  which 


JUNE  145 

was  Sunday,  and  the  day  after  that  was  the  day 
that  I  went  home  again,  leaving  these  mountains 
and  the  Wetherill  house  which  is  the  nondescript 
hotel  that  I  stayed  at,  until  the  next  tantalizing 
and  hungry  visit  can*be  brought  about. 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  "I  have  brought  you  a  dozen 
jars  of  marmalade  that  I  made  all  myself,  and  two 
pounds  of  fudge."  That  was  my  greeting. 

My  husband  took  my  hands  and  saw  that  I 
was  trying  not  to  shrink  from  him,  but  doing  so 
nevertheless. 

"Mother,"  he  said  to  Mrs.  Richardson,  who 
stood  looking  at  me  wonderingly,  "get  out  of 
here,  will  you? — And  forgive  me?"  Then  he 
went  down  on  his  knees  and  grasped  me  in  his 
strong  arms.  "What  is  it,  Beth?"  he  said. 

I  laughed  foolishly,  and  then  I  cried  without 
any  other  reason.  "I  don't  want  there  to  be  any 
war,"  I  complained,  "and  I  want  you  to  come 
home  to  me  if  you  love  me, — and  want  to — I 
can't  help  saying  these  things  now  this  minute, — 
but  if  you  will  hold  me  in  your  arms  without 


146  OVER  HERE 

letting  me  go  for  a  little  while  I  guess  I  can 
stop  them." 

Then  seeing  how  worried  about  me  this  giving 
way  made  him,  why,  of  course  I  did  stop  them 
at  once.  I  have  a  perfectly  awful  time  getting 
into  Tommy's  arms,  but  once  I  am  in  them  the 
universe  straightens  itself  out  again. 

"You  are  not  well,  Beth?"  Tommy  cried  in 
the  swift  spasm  of  anguish  I  had  caused  him,  but 
I  was  soon  able  to  demonstrate  how  well  I  was. 
Any  one  would  be  well  looking  into  Tommy's 
eyes  and  seeing  what  I  saw  there. 

"I  have  a  husband,"  I  said  diplomatically  and 
jokingly,  "who  is  in  the  service,  and  even  if  I 
didn't  want  to  keep  myself  in  condition  for  my- 
self I  would,  of  course,  do  so  in  order  to  be 
an  example  to  him," — which  seemed  to  be  a  sig- 
nal for  me  to  be  deprived  of  breath  once  more. 
Tommy  certainly  has  a  great  deal  of  strength  in 
his  arms. 

"Well,  don't  take  this  chap  Hoover  too  liter- 
ally, dear.  Keep  yourself  nourished  up  to  the 
blooming  point  no  matter  what  happens." 


JUNE  147 

"To  the  Allies?"  I  suggested  mischievously. 

"To  the  angels,"  he  said  recklessly,  "so  long 
as  you  are  as  you  should  be." 

"The  war  couldn't  stop,  could  it,  Tommy  ?"  I 
said. 

"No,  dear,  not  without  disaster  to  the  whole 
civilized  world." 

"Well,  my  point  is  that  if  you  feel  that  way 
about  the  angels — " 

"There  isn't  any  personal  happiness  possible 
to  any  of  us  now,  until  this  business  is  settled," 
Tommy  said  gravely.  "It's  a  cruel  way  to  feel, 
dear,  but  it's  the  only  way." 

"I  know  it,"  I  said. 

The  point  is  now,  do  I  know  it?  Father  and 
Tommy — they  feel  it  in  their  souls.  It  comes 
with  their  breath,  they  draw  it  in  and  out  of  the 
atmosphere  as  they  breathe.  It  comes  first.  Does 
it  come  first  with  me?  Could  I  measure  it  by 
my  love  for  Tommy  and  say,  "Save  the  world 
and  let  the  love  go?"  Could  any  woman?  Mar- 
cella  Harcourt  does  now — now  that  there  is  no 
other  way  left  for  her  to  feel.  Perhaps  you  could 


148  OVER  HERE 

assent  to  a  sacrifice  after  it  was  made  for  you. 
I  don't  know,  but  it  seems  preposterous  to  me 
that  anybody  could  feel  that  way  either  before 
or  after  a  thing  like  what  has  happened  to  her. 
I  don't  see  why  she  cares  what  happens  to  the 
Allies  now. 

I  do  not  want  to  have  a  shadow  between  me 
and  Tommy,  that  is,  only  the  necessary  shadow  of 
my  educational  limitations.  Even  that  doesn't 
loom  very  big  when  we  are  in  the  same  room  in 
town  together.  He  knows  that  I  know  things, 
and  I  know  that  he  knows  things  that  make  us 
each  other's,  and  there  are  practical  ways  that  I 
can  teach  him ;  like  sewing  on  buttons  and  polish- 
ing up  gilt  and  nickel  with  the  least  trouble.  He 
cleans  his  rifle  for  instance  the  way  I  do,  having 
changed  over  from  his  way,  which  I  think  is  a 
great  compliment  to  pay  to  any  woman.  That  is, 
he  uses  squares  of  canton  flannel  instead  of  any 
old  thing  as  he  used  to.  Also,  I  could  teach  him 
to  cook  if  I  only  had  a  little  opportunity  to  do  so. 

But  alas,  I  can  not  quite  make  up  my  mind  to 
let  the  war  come  first,  and  until  I  do  there  will  al- 


JUNE  149 

ways  be  this  thing  in  the  world  that  Tommy  and  I 
do  not  feel  the  same  about.  He  can  put  the  war 
before  me  if  he  wants  to.  Everything  he  does 
and  thinks  is  right.  So  I  don't  mind.  I  only  wish 
my  own  nobility  didn't  go  into  the  small  measure 
that  it  does.  Well,  I  bought  a  Liberty  Bond  with 
my  trousseau  money,  anyway.  A  pink  and  blue 
crepe  de  chine  kimono,  especially  if  you  have 
singled  it  out  in  a  shop  months  before,  is  at  least 
a  concrete  thing  to  contribute  to  a  world  at  war. 
A  funny  thing  happened  about  Mrs.  Allensby 
when  I  was  at  Plattsburg.  It  was  on  Sunday 
when,  according  to  Mrs.  Godfrey,  Tommy 
usually  went  automobiling  with  her,  and  accord- 
ing to  Tommy  he  just  took  a  little  run  around  in 
somebody's  car  and  got  his  mind  off  his  work 
for  a  while.  I  was  waiting  for  him  to  come  and 
get  me  to  take  me  to  camp  when  Mrs.  Richardson 
returned  from  a  little  walk  about  the  town  and 
said  that  she  had  just  met  a  friend  we  both 
know — a  Mrs.  Pendleton — and  she  had  said  that 
she  had  just  seen  Tommy  in  Mrs.  Allensby's  car 
going  south.  Mrs.  Richardson  said  that,  of 


150  OVER  HERE 

course,  she  must  have  been  mistaken  as  Tommy 
would  spend  every  available  minute  either  with  us 
or  getting  to  us. 

Well,  I  waited  an  hour  and  a  half  of  those 
precious  hours  that  were  all  I  had  to  be  with  my 
husband,  and  still  he  did  not  come.  Mrs.  Rich- 
ardson fidgeted,  or  as  nearly  did  as  she  could 
possibly  accomplish  in  her  calmness ;  but  she  knit- 
ted, too. 

I  kept  my  eyes  open  and  on  her  as  much  of 
the  time  as  I  had  to  for  courtesy's  sake,  but  the 
rest  of  the  time  I  kept  them  shut,  while  I  was 
pretending  to  look  out  of  the  window  or  wander- 
ing around  the  room  with  my  back  to  everything 
in  it.  In  that  period  I  measured  up  Tommy's 
and  my  love  for  each  other,  and  I  did  not  find 
it  wanting.  The  silly  suffering  about  having  him 
by  the  side  of  that  Allensby  woman  at  a  time 
when  I  most  wanted  him  by  the  side  of  me,  I 
bore  as  well  as  I  could,  which  wasn't  very  well, 
as  the  sound  of  her  name  has  always  made  me 
feel  somewhat  like  fainting  away  since  the  first 
time  I  heard  it,  and  since  fainting  is  a  new  ac- 


JUNE  151 

complishment  of  mine  lately,  why  the  combination 
nearly  bowled  me  over  shamelessly.  Mrs.  Rich- 
ardson came  over  to  me  once  during1  my  battle 
with  myself  and  tried  to  put  her  arms  around 
me.  I  tried  to  let  her,  but  she  was  fortunately 
diverted  by  the  knock  of  an  attendant  at  the  door. 

When  Tommy  did  come  in,  he  was  boiling 
with  rage.  He  said  he  couldn't  explain)  but  Teddy 
Godfrey  had  got  him  into  something  that  took 
a  heluva  lot  of  time  and  he  could  not  get  to  us 
before.  Would  we  forgive  him?  I  could' readily, 
and  did. 

It  afterward  turned  out  that  Teddy  Godfrey 
was  marrying  the  Allensby  woman  that  very  day 
and  enlisted  Tommy's  services.  Tommy  didn't 
even  approve  of  the  marriage  because  Mrs.  Allens- 
by was  divorced  and  older  than  Teddy,  but  not  so 
much  older  that  Tommy  could  protest  against 
it,  on  account  of  Teddy's  being  of  age  and  per- 
fectly responsible.  They  didn't  want  the  thing 
to  leak  out  because  of  the  notoriety,  and  Tommy 
couldn't'  do"  less  than  help'  them  out  because  of 
the  family  connection  and  all  that.  As  I  look 


152  OVER  HERE 

back  it  seems  to  me  a.  very  fortunate  thing  that 
I  didn't  get  offended  about  this  before  I  knew 
the  facts.  Certainly  they  looked  very  circum- 
stantial to  an  outsider,  but  to  me  they  only  caused 
suffering — not  distrust  or  doubt  of  any  kind.  A 
woman  that  loves  her  husband  can  not  afford  to 
harbor  such  things  in  her  heart. 

Just  the  same  I  am  rather  glad  that  Mrs.  A. 
put  one  over  on  Mrs.  G.  My  dear  sister-in-law 
was  certainly  perfectly  willing  for  me  to  believe 
the  worst  of  one  who  is  now  in  the  same  relation 
to  herself  that  she  is  to  me.  Ah,  ha! 


CHAPTER  IX 

JULY 

NEW  YORK  is, like  a  tired  lily  in  an  ash-heap, 
said  ash-heap  being  directly  in  line  with  the 
sun's  hottest  and  most  devastating  rays,  which 
sounds  much  more  unflattering  to  my  small  home 
towa  than,  I  mean  it  to  be.  I  said  a  tired  lily, 
which  after  all  is  not  a  soiled  or  faded  one,  and 
a  lily  is  always  a  pleasant  object,  as  is  also  New 
York  itself  to  my  way  of  thinking.  But  it  is 
gritty,  and  hot.  The  most  earnest  admirers  of 
it  could  not  deny  those  salient  facts,  or  make 
them  any  more  or  less  salient. 

Always  before  at  this  time  I  have  been  to  the 
dear  delightful  seashore — I  am  slightly  sarcastic 
here,  but  only  slightly  as  I  love  swimming  almost 
more  than  any  other  thing  I  do — which  seems 
to  have  a  new  swarm*  of  mosquitoes  brought  in 
on  the  crest  of  every  wave  thus  early  in  the  sea- 
153 


i54  OVER  HERE 

son.  Then  there  is  the  Tinny  Ford — not  a  joke, — • 
the  Tinnys  are  the  family  that  have  it  to  rent — 
and  for  a  dollar  a  day  and  found,  I  can  have  the 
most  gorgeous  runs  out  on  the  rutty  country 
roads,  with  kind  bewhiskered  farmers,  owners 
of  good  stout  ropes  and  excellent  teams  for  tow- 
ing purposes  scattered  along  at  convenient  inter- 
vals. But  Tommy  never  having  been  there  with 
me  of  course  I  resisted  going  this  season.  We 
can't  afford  it,  anyway.  Running  two  places  is 
too  expensive,  or  even  shutting  up  this  apartment 
and  letting  father  go  to  his  club,  and  paying  the 
cottage  rent  besides.  The  high  cost  of  living  is 
a  sober  reality  now.  You  can't  buy  much  for 
your  money  nowadays,  and  if  it's  wheat  in  any 
form  it's  wicked  to  try  to  buy  it.  It's  anti-war 
to  have  bundles  sent  home  from  the  stores,  but 
that's  all  right  because  I  can  carry  home  every- 
thing I  can  afford  to  buy  now  very  nicely.  My 
husband  gives  me  money,  of  course,  and  so  does 
my  father  who  argues  that  it  is  the  sole  contribu- 
tion he  can  make  to  the  cause  Tommy  is  serving, 
to  help  him  support  his  wife,  but  most  of  my 


JULY  155 

money  goes  to  help  in  some  way  or  other,  if  it's 
only  to  buy  yarn  to  knit  more  sweaters.  A  woman 
is  considered  a  piker  nowadays  unless  she  knits 
every  minute,  through  bathing  and  breakfast  and 
so  on  until  she  hits  the  bed  and  drags  the 
drapery  of  her  couch  about  her  and  lies  down  to 
pleasant  dreams.  (Bryant.  Note;  Literary  edu- 
cation looking  up.) 

Whether  or  not  it  is  good  for  me  to  be  in 
New  York  I  don't  know.  That  is  another  story 
and  one  that  is  writing  itself  a  long  way  back  in 
my  mind,  though  nobody  knows  it,  however. 

I  was  feeling  so  seedy  that  I  finally  went  to 
see  my  good  old  Doctor  Fitch.  I  didn't  tell 
mother  or  father  that  I  intended  to  do  so  because 
I  meant  simply  to  appear  with  a  tonic,  and  be 
patted  on  the  back  for  my  grown-up  habitude 
of  getting  myself  attended  to.  I  didn't  tell  them 
afterward  from  natural  and  obvious  reasons. 

Well,  Doctor  Fitch  listened  to  my  tale  of  woe, 
about  the  fainting  fits  and  everything.  Then  he 
took  me  off  into  his  inner  sanctum  and  examined 
and  inquired  and  examined  some  more.  His 


156  OVER  HERE 

attendant  is  a  good-looking  young  woman  in  regu- 
lar Spotless  Town  regalia.  I  shall  never  forget  her 
big  blue  eyes  and  the  little  red  mole  on  her  cheek 
to  my  dying  day,  because  she  was  the  first  person 
I  saw  after  I  went  out  of  that  inside  office.  The 
doctor  had  told  me  in  so  many  words  what  was 
the  matter  with  me. 

"I  thought  that  you  had  to  be  at  least — over 
twenty,"  was  the  first  rather  ridiculous  thing  I 
blurted  out.  I  had  always  thought  so. 

"No,  it  isn't  a  matter  of  being  legally  of  age," 
he  responded,  with  his  kind  blue  eyes  smiling  at 
me. 

Then  we  paused. 

"You  knew  that  these  things  sometimes  came 
about?"  he  hazarded. 

"Well,  yes,"  I  said. 

"You  go  home  and  talk  to  your  mother.  I'll 
write  out  a  few  simple  instructions  and  she'll 
give  you  the  rest." 

"Doctor,"  I  said  earnestly,  "do  you  think  it 
would  be  a  perfectly  awful  thing  to  do  if  I  didn't 
talk  to  anybody  at  all  about  it,  only  you?" 


JULY  157 

"Why,  no,  if  you  talk  to  me  often  enough. 
Little  girls  usually  like  to  go  and  talk  to  their 
mothers  at  a  time  like  this." 

"You  can't  call  me  a  little  girl  any  more,"  I 
said.  "I  am  not  a  little  girl  any  more." 

"No,"  he  said  gently.  Tears  came  in  both 
of  our  eyes  as  we  looked  at  each  other.  I  never 
felt  so  intimate  with  any  one  whom  I  knew  so 
slightly  before.  "Better  tell  your  mother,"  he 
repeated.  . 

I  shook  my  head,  and  he  came  and  put  his 
arms  around  me  where  I  stood.  "I'll  tell  my  hus- 
band,— sometime,"  I  whispered  to  him. 

When  I  went  home  I  heard  the  phonograph 
in  the  apartment  below  us  grinding  out  the  now 
taboo  tune,  I  Did  Not  Raise  My  Boy  to  Be  a 
Soldier. 

"Well!"  I  said. 

My  cousin  George  came  and  told  me  that  he 
thought  my  cousin  Roland — now  in  his  conven- 
tional suit  of  khaki  of  course — was  going  to  marry 
Dolly  Grainger,  out  of  spite.  I  then  saw  why 


158  OVER  HERE 

she  had  been  trailing  around  with  George  so 
much, — to  get  at  Roland  through  him,  which  is 
the  very  best  way  it  can  be  done. 

"Spite?"  I  said. 

"Sure,  on  account  of  his  being  so  sore  about 
your  marrying  Richardson." 

"The  idea!"  I  said. 

"The  idea!"  he  said,  mimicking  my  tones. 
"You  t'run  down  the  family  fortune  and  the  Price 
rocks — all  at  one  swoop.  You  might  'a'  consid- 
ered me  a  little  more  while  you  were  about  it.  It'd 
be  some  consolation  to  keep  what  money  we've 
got  in  the  family,  anyhow." 

"Now,  who's  sore  ?"  I  retorted.  It  was  really 
rather  rough  on  George  to  be  used  as  a  go- 
between  that  way. 

"I  am,"  he  replied  succinctly. 

I  sent  for  Roland  the  next  day,  and  to  my 
surprise  he  came  right  away. 

"Roland,"  I  said,  looking  into  his  keen  blue 
eyes  and  noting  the  clean  look  of  hi's  skin  as  it 
was  drawn  closely  about  his  temples,  "you  must 
not  marry  a  woman  you  don't  love." 


JULY  159 

"I  can't  marry  the  one  I  do — did  love/'  he 
retorted  meaningly. 

"Then  don't  marry  at  all,"  I  said. 

"And  why?" 

"It's  a  sin,"  I  said. 

"Why  is  it  a  sin?" 

"It  just  is — that's  all.  You  have  to  love  the 
one  you  marry." 

"I  can't — that's  all,  and  I  want  to  get  mar- 
ried." 

"I  thought  you  had  more  character  than 
George,"  I  said;  "he  wants  to  get  married." 

"Family  traits  cropping  out.  Well,  I'm  going 
over  there  and  leaving  no  one  at  home — barring 
mother — who  cares  a  tinker's,  and  I  don't  expect 
to  come  back." 

"Don't  expect  to  come  back  ?"  I  said. 

"I  don't  think  a  feller  ought  to  expect  to  come 
back — if  he's  really  getting  in,  do  you?  Oh!  this 
is  a  fight  to  the  finish." 

His  words  struck  terror  to  my  soul,  but  I  soon 
thought  better  of  them.  Tommy  has  never  said 
anything  remotely  approaching  this  sentiment. 


160  OVER  HERE 

"Don't  marry  Dolly  Grainger,"  I  repeated. 

"Tell  me  a  good  reason  why?" 

I  could  not  betray  my  sex  altogether  at  a 
moment  like  this,  so  I  only  said : 

"You  mustn't.  You  must  trust  the  one  you 
marry,  permanently." 

"What  if  I  say  I  shall?" 

"Then  I  shall  say  you  shan't" 

"Who  appointed  you  to  be  my  keeper?" 

"I  appoint  myself." 

"You  might  have  been  my  keeper,  once." 

"You  shan't  marry  Dolly  Grainger." 

"Count  o'  your  making  a  point  of  it?"  he 
sneered  punningly. 

"Roland,"  I  said,  "I  know  something  that  you 
don't  know.  You  can't  rig  up  a  marriage  the 
way  you  rig  up  a — a — well,  anything  at  all,  and 
step  right  into  it.  It's — it's  too  sacred.  Besides 
you  might  be  founding  a  race." 

"Beth!"  he  said. 

Well,  you  can't  choose  just  exactly  the  people 
you'd  have  to  know  different  things.  Roland 
and  Doctor  Fitch — people  I  hardly  ever  see  or 


JULY  161 

think  of.  Roland  is  really  an  awfully  sensitive 
fellow.  He  hung  around  for  the  rest  of  the  after- 
noon and  though  he  cut  up  a  good  deal,  he  didn't 
get  hectoring  or  boisterous  once.  He  promised 
me  he  wouldn't  think  of  marrying  Dolly,  and  that 
he'd  try  to  get  back  from  the  trenches  intact,  and 
when  he  went  away  he  patted  me  on  the  back 
and  called  me  "old  scout"  just  the  way  he  always 
used  to.  I  guess  it  was  worth  paying  the  price 
for.  But  it  was  a  price  all  the  same. 

When  I  got  up  to  Plattsburg  for  the  second 
time  there  it  was  just  the  same,  the  same  stunning 
mountains  stretching  into  the  open  sky,  and  the 
same  cheerful  town,  and  the  same  camp,  only  more 
shacks  are  added  to  it,  and  it's  more  bulging  and 
overrunning  with  soldiers.  This  time  I  saw  more 
drilling  and  marching  and  met  a  greater  number 
of  the  men. 

Also,  I  refreshed  my  memory  on  a  great  many 
points  such  as  rifle  drill  and  signaling  and  differ- 
ent formations.  It  is  dreadful  to  think  of  Tommy 
having  to  be  such  a  good  housekeeper  all  by  him- 


162  OVER  HERE 

self  in  his  quarters.  I  used  to  love  it  when  he 
left  his  things  around  and  I  could  pick  them  up. 
Now  he  has  to  clean  off  all  his  own  spots,  of 
course,  and  keep  his  camp  equipment  in  order 
and  hundreds  of  things  it  is  too  bad  a  husband 
of  mine,  brought  up  like  a  gentleman,  should 
have  to  do  day  out  and  day  in,  with  no  rest 
from  it. 

I  was  all  by  myself  without  Mrs.  Richardson 
to  chaperon  me,  and  for  the  first  time  since  it  hap- 
pened I  felt  just  a  little  bit  married.  The  waiters 
didn't  even  call  me  "Miss — Madam — "  as  usual, 
but  were  very  decorous.  Tommy  was  also  very 
respectful.  He  talked  more  intellectually  with 
me  than  he  has  ever  done.  He  went  over  maps 
of  the  different  fronts  with  me  and  explained 
things  about  the  campaigns  in  a  way  that  made 
them  really  interesting,  and  we  discussed  Russia 
and  the  different  war  aims  of  the  nations  and  had 
a  beautiful  and  very  sympathetic  time  of  it. 

In  our  mutual  dreams  there  is  a  little  vine- 
hung  bungalow  on  a  country  lane,  with  a  ditto 
garage  just  beyond  it,  and  many  fancy 


JULY  163 

breeds  of  chickens,  some  prize  police  dogs  and  a 
collie  for  me.  There  is  a  big  fireplace,  big  enough 
to  heat  the  surrounding  country  and  everything 
is  very  just  right  about  it.  This  comes  of  our 
having  lived  in  so  many  different  hotel  rooms 
partly,  and  partly  it  comes  from  natural  selec- 
tion. I  want  it  hung  in  tan  and  rose  color  with 
a  little  dull  blue  in  the  decorations.  I  make  a 
very  good-looking  room  though  I  say  it  as 
shouldn't.  It  would  show  Tommy  off  to  the  most 
beautiful  advantage,  either  in  or  out  of  khaki. 
Recently  I  have  added  another  room  to  those 
we  had  planned — in  my  own  private  dream, 
that  is. 

"Tommy,"  I  said  to  him  in  our  placid  and 
plushy  room  at  the  Wetherill  house,  "what  shall 
we  put  on  the  top  floor  of  'The  Rookie'  ?  " — 
which  is  its  foolish  name. 

"Ain't  going  to  be  any  top  floor,  is  there?" 
"Sure,  for  an — attic,  and  things  like  that." 
"What  other  things  are  like  an  attic?" 
"Oh,  I  don't  know.    Store  rooms." 
"Same  thing." 


164  OVER  HERE 

"Tommy,"  I  said.  "Can  I  have  a  room  on 
the  top  floor  to  put  anything  I  want  to  in  ?" 

"Ya-ah." 

But  he  didn't  ask  me  what  I  might  want  to 
be  going  to  put  in  it.  So  I  didn't  tell  him. 

I  tried  another  tack  soon  after. 

"My  friend  Lester  Price  is  a  pacifist,  you 
know,  but  he  says  that  even  if  he  weren't  and 
were  married  he  wouldn't  believe  it  was  right  to 
go  to  war  if  he  had  given  any  hostages  to  for- 
tune." 

"Has  your  friend  Lester  a  copy  of  Bartlett's 
Familiar  Quotations'?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"We  might  give  hi'm  one  for  Christmas." 

"Let's  not  josh  each  other,"  I  said.  "What 
do  you  think  about  that?" 

"About  what?" 

"What  Lester  says." 

"Oh!  I  suppose  men  with  families  have  to 
settle  that  for  themselves." 

"I  suppose  they  do,"  I  said. 


JULY  165 

"Beth,"  Tommy  said  suddenly,  "you  had  some 
regular  boys  in  love  with  you,  rich  guys  that  could 
have  given  you  the  earth." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "I  told  you  about  Lester." 

"He  could  have  left  you  provided  for." 

"Whaddje  mean  provided  for?"  We  get  very 
lax  in  our  English  at  times  when  we're  alone  to- 
gether. 

"Whatever  happened  to  him  he  could  have 
been  sure  what  would  happen  to  you." 

"No,  he  couldn't,"  I  said.  "If  I  had  married 
Lester  I  nor  he  wouldn't  have  been  sure  what 
would  happen  in  any  case.  Besides,"  I  said,  "there 
is  only  one  man  who  could  have  given  me 
the  earth." 

"And  who  was  he  ?"  asked  Tommy  teasingly. 

"The  one  that  gave  it  to  me,"  I  replied  con- 
vincingly. 

Billy  Douglas  says  that  the  intelligence  of  a 
man  is  very  limited,  and  in  a  certain  sense  I 
think  perhaps  this  may  be  true.  They  are  surely 
not  very  quick  at  understanding  hints  and  subtle — 


1 66  OVER  HERE 

or  is  that  subtile — suggestions,  unless  you  make 
them  much  more  broadly  than  you  have  any 
desire  to. 

When  Tommy  is  very  tired  I  fold  him  up  in  a 
blanket  and  put  him  to  sleep,  patting  him  of 
course,  and  treating  him  as  if  he  were  in  reality 
a  small  boy  of  mine.  He  likes  this  and  it  rests 
him.  I  suppose  most  married  people  wouldn't 
be  so  childish  in  the  things  they  do,  but  Tommy 
needs  having  a  mother  for  a  wife  on  account  of 
his  being  so  dependent  on  being  made  comfy  and 
having  his  ruffled  feathers  smoothed  out.  Well, 
after  we  came  back  from  motoring  that  Sunday 
night,  (Tommy  doesn't  have  to  go  motoring  with 
the  Teddy  Godfreys  now,  thank  goodness,  and 
says  he  will  see  them  very  unpolitely  further  first) 
I  first  performed  the  kind  office  of  putting  my 
husband  to  sleep  and  then  got  very  homesick  for 
him  to  wake  up  again.  So  finally  I  put  out  the 
light  and  thought  I  would  lie  down  beside  him 
for  a  while.  While  I  was  doing  so  it  suddenly 
came  over  me  that  I  might  not  see  him  again 
for  some  time,  and  also  that  the  duration  of  the 


JULY  167 

war  was  a  long,  long  time.  I  therefore  did  what 
one  would  naturally  do  under  the  circumstances — 
cried. 

But  after  a  while  I  stopped  crying  and  took  my 
sleeping  husband  in  my  arms  and  kissed  him,  to 
which  he  replied: 

"Squads  right.    March.    Halt." 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  "we  are  going  to  have  a 
little  baby." 

"Unfix  bayonets,"  Tommy  said.  "Strike  tents 
and  parry." 

I  kissed  him  again,  quite  relieved  at  what  I 
had  said  to  him. 

"Was  I  talking  in  my  sleep?"  he  said  when 
he  woke  up. 

"Yes,  dear,"  I  said  meekly. 

"What  did  I  say?" 

"Your  conversation  was  rather  mixed,"  I  said. 

"I  hope  I  didn't  miss  anything  of  importance?" 
he  suggested  playfully.  "Nobody's  eyes  got  big- 
ger or  bluer  while  I  was  sleeping." 

"They  got  something  in  them,"  I  said  truth- 
fully, "but  I  dried  them  away  for  you." 


i68  OVER  HERE 

"Not  real  ones?" 

"No — baby  ones,"  I  said. 

"You  are  not  a  crying  woman,  are  you,  dear?" 

"Well,  more  or  less  I  am,"  I*said,  "lately — 
since — •" 

But  Tommy  wasn't  listening  to  that. 

"Oh!  Beth,"  he  said,  "I've  been  trying  to 
remember  to  ask  you,  do  you  remember  the  name 
of  that — that  powder  solvent  that  you  can  leave 
in  the  rifle  barrel  after  you  clean  it — that  stuff 
I  told  you  about  when  I  first  came  up  here?" 

"Why,  yes,  it  was  Hopp's — number  nine,"  I 
said. 


CHAPTER  X 

AUGUST 

I  AM  trying  to  get  a  good  grip  on  this  war 
again  for  Tommy's  sake.  I  must  admit  it 
got  rather  overlaid  in  my  own  mind  with  my 
own  and  other  affairs.  I  think  a  lot  of  people 
feel  the  same  way  about  it.  You  can't  see  the 
woods  of  war  for  the  trees  of  head-lined  debates 
and  discussion.  Secretary  Baker  gets  blindfolded 
and  puts  in  his  thumb  and  pulls  out  the  first  rather 
bitter — to  some  people — plum  of  the  draft,  and 
his  picture  is  in  all  the  papers.  Russia  revolutes 
and  revolutes,  and  gets  an  army  of  women  with 
bobbed  hair.  Mr.  Hoover  becomes  our  official 
Old  Mother  Hubbard  and  takes  charge  of  the 
National  Cupboard — no  disrespect  intended — and 
hordes  of  well-dressed  women  that  never  spent  a 
summer  in  New  York  before  in  their  life  drive 
and  drive  and  drive  to  help  to  get  money  for 
169 


170  OVER  HERE 

military  purposes — mother  among1  them — doing 
pretty  nearly  her  durndest. 

If  anybody  says  suddenly  to  you  in  the  midst 
of  all  this  energetic  endeavor,  some  little  thing 
about  the  war,  you  almost  look  up  and  say  "What 
war?" — just  the  way  you  feel  on  the  subway  in 
Times  Square  about  "Watch  your  step," — the 
guards  chant  it  until  you  can't  hear  it  at  all.  Still 
the  fact  remains  that  seventeen  nations  are  at 
war  with  Germany  and  she's  holding  out  like  the 
friskiest  thing  you  can  imagine.  They  have  a  lot 
of  nice  little  new  ideas  like  liquid  fire,  and 
numerically  the  young  ones  are  growing  up  so 
that  it  just  looks  as  if  they  could  never  be  dis- 
posed of  fast  enough  even  if  there  were  seven- 
teen hundred  nations  against  them.  I  wish  tnere 
were.  Still  you  know  I  personally  believe  that 
all  the  reports  are  too  good  to  be  true — of  them — 
I  mean.  They  are  probably  just  on  their  last 
stretch  of  morale,  and  when  their  morale  goes — • 
they're  gone. 

Speaking  of  morale  makes  me  think  of  poor 
Lester.  He  nearly  got  arrested  the  other  night 


AUGUST  171 

for  speaking  violently  of  peace  in  a  public  res- 
taurant and  having  a  man  with  him,  Pedro  Blum- 
enstein,  who  wasn't  going  to  rise  to  the  national 
anthem.  He  wasn't  a  socialist  or  anything, 
though  living  on  Washington  Square  South,  but 
he  claimed  that  the  words  of  The  Star  Spangled 
Banner  were  not  beautiful  enough  to  have  him 
pay  them  the  tribute  of  rising.  He  said  he  was 
a  poet,  and  therefore  offended  by  them.  When 
they  found  out  who  Lester's  father  was  they  let 
him  go  and  his  friend  too.  I  feel  Lester  very 
heavily  on  my  mind  when  he  does  things  like 
that. 

"Think  of  the  wrong  this  war  has  done  to  the 
moral  sense  of  mankind,"  he  said.  "Every  war 
is  an  outrage  on  humanity,  but  war  in  our  day 
and  generation,  as  never  before  in  man's  history, 
is  a  crime." 

"You  left  out  something,  Lester,"  I  said 
wickedly. 

"Left  out  something? — " 

"Yes,  out  of  Hall  Caine.  That's  where  you 
got  it,  wasn't  it?" 


172  OVER  HERE 

"What  difference  does  it  make  where  I  get 
it  if  it's  what  I  believe?" 

"Lester,"  I  said,  "are  you  so  terribly  sure  what 
you  believe  ?  I'm*  not." 

"Aren't  you  ?"  he  said.  "Why,  I  thought  you 
were.  But  you  do  adhere  to  the  military  ideal." 

"Yes." 

"You  think  this  war  is  right." 

"I  think  it  is  necessary.  I'll  tell  you.  If  an 
insane  neighbor  was  beating  his  wife  or  anybody 
else's  wife  and  cruelizing  his  children  one  couldn't 
sleep  safe  and  snug  in  one's  bed.  You'd  never 
forget  or  forgive  yourself  if  you  didn't  try  to 
mix  in." 

"I — might,"  said  Lester,  "if  I  thought  it  was 
right." 

"You  would  go  and  beat  up  anybody  that 
was  committing  a  crime." 

"Well,  I  suppose  I  would,"  Lester  admitted. 
He  isn't  timid — only  thoughtful.  "Is  that  why 
you  want  your  husband  to  go?  Just  for  an  ab- 
stract idea  like  that?" 


AUGUST  173 

"All  your  ideas  are  abstract,  Lester,"  I  re- 
minded him.  "Yes,  that's  why  I  would  want 
him  to  go/' 

"My  friend  Blumenstein  says  that  all  patriot- 
ism is  merely  .neurosis.  I  don't  think  yours  is, 
Elizabeth.  I — I  think  it's  very  noble." 

"Thank  you,  Lester,"  I  said.  "I'm  not  so 
terribly  noble,  though.  I'm  not  doing  anything 
for  the  war  really." 

"What  more  could  you  do?  You've  given 
it  your  husband,  and  you've  been  very  active  about 
eating  war  bread,  and  the  Red  Cross  and  all  that. 
I  think  you  have  been  fine  about  it." 

"I  don't  know  what,"  I  said,  "but  I've  had  a 
kind  of  feeling  for  a  long  time  as  if  the  war 
wanted  something  else  of  me,  if  you  can  under- 
stand what  I  mean." 

"You  haven't  got  anything  more  to  give," 
Lester  reminded  me  practically. 

"No  more  material  things.  There  are  certain 
feelings  you  have  to  give  up  too.  I  can't  exactly 
explain,  but  there  are  ways  in  which  I  am  a  pig 


174  OVER  HERE 

about  the  war.  I  don't  put  it  first,  for  one  thing," 
I  declared. 

"You  should  worry,"  said  Lester  weakly,  but 
he  looked  very  ill  at  ease.  "You  speak  as  if  the 
war  were  a  thing — a  kind  of  Frankenstein  or 
something." 

"Well,  isn't  it?" 

"It  isn't  alive." 

"It  isn't  dead"  I  said.  "I  think  it's  a  big 
avenging  angel  with  wings  that  hang  over  the 
world.  I  know  that's  symbolism,  but  why  not?" 

"I  never  heard  you  talk  like  that  before," 
Lester  argued. 

"I  never  felt  like  that  before,"  I  said  shortly. 

It's  true,  though.  The  war  wants  something 
that  it's  not  getting.  Well,  I've  given  it  Tommy 
for  about  an  average  of  twenty-seven  days  out  of 
every  four  weeks.  That's  about  all  I've  got.  I 
must  eat  more  fish  and  chicken. 

Nobody  in  this  world  ever  worked  any  harder 
than  Tommy  is  working  or  got  any  tireder  of 
what  he  was  doing — and  wanted  to  finish — than 
Tommy  is.  He  is  coming  home  to  me  very  soon. 


AUGUST  175 

I  don't  know,  of  course, — he'll  have  to  go  where 
he  is  sent, — but  I  have  a  sort  of  hunch  that  I  can 
keep  him  nearer  to  me  now  that  I  need  him 
most  Whichever  camp  he  is  sent  to  I  can  go  and 
live  near.  A  great  many  officers  will  probably 
never  get  over  to  the  other  side  on  account  of  their 
being  so  useful  here.  Tommy  says  that  one  of 
the  best  things  about  the  new  army  is  the  perfect 
genius  displayed  in  picking  the  men  for  different 
positions — that  men  who  are  good  leaders  are 
selected  by  all  kinds  of  artful  methods  that  work 
like  a  charm.  For  instance,  at  Plattsburg  a  man 
is  carefully  sounded  and  tried  out  about  his  abil- 
ity to  pick  other  good  men,  and  if  he  can  do  it 
they  know  he  will  make  a  good  officer.  I  imagine 
Tommy  would  make  a  very  good  and  patient 
teacher,  and  that  he  will  be  obliged  to  go  on 
teaching  indefinitely.  Poor  Tommy,  he  won't 
altogether  like  that,  but  I  think  when  I  catch  him 
awake  and  tell  him  what  he  and  I  have  to  expect 
of  the  future  that  he'll  be  rather  glad  to  realize 
it  is  true.  Besides  I  feel  wuzzier  and  wuzzier 
at  times,  and  I  want  him  to  know. 


1 76  OVER  HERE 

We  never  can  tell  what  is  going  to  happen 
to  us,  can  we? 

I  was  going  to  have  Tommy  go  to  Camp  Yap- 
hank — name  and  all,  mortifying  as  it  would  be 
to  have  a  husband  at  it.  I  was  going  to  encamp 
near  him  and  have  him  all  to  myself  for  one  day 
a  week,  and  spend  the  rest  of  the  time  loving 
him  and  providing  little  luxuries  for  his  comfort. 
I  was  going  to  have  him  for  mine,  now.  Well,  I 
guess  the  war  did  want  something  more  of  me, 
and  has  got  all  it's  going  to  get.  One  can  bear 
such  things  of  course,  and  it's  only  decent  to  give 
up  when  you  know  it's  the  big  thing.  War  is 
hell,  but  there  is  something  about  doing  your 
part  that  helps  you  through  it. 

To  begin  at  the  beginning  Tommy  got  his 
commission — a  captaincy.  I  was  very  disap- 
pointed that  he  wasn't  a  major  at  first,  but  he 
explained  to  me  that  he  didn't  think  he  ought 
to  be  a  major  yet.  He  is  always  very  modest. 
But  I  know  that  a  major  sits  in  his  quarters  and 
directs  things  from  behind  the  lines  while  a  cap- 
tain has  to  lead  his  men  over  the  top.  He  prom- 


AUGUST  177 

ised,  however,  to  get  to  be  a  major  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible, and  while  I  know  that  he  is  only  kidding  me 
about  it,  still  it  is  much  more  comfortable  to  have 
him  do  so. 

Well,  he  came  home  to  me  with  the  bells  on, 
and  spent  three  seraphic  days  in  our  fiendishly  hot 
apartment.  I  must  say  that  he  has  the  most  beau- 
tiful nature  any  human  being  ever  had,  and  the 
most  considerate  manners,  even  to  his  own  wife, 
in  weather  that  makes  a  devil  almost  of  every 
man. 

At  the  end  of  that  time  he  said  to  me  without 
any  preliminary :  "Beth,  I  want  to  volunteer  for 
special  service  and  go  over  with  the  crowd  that's 
going  over  now,  shall  I  ?" 

"Why  do  you  want  to  do  that  ?"  I  said. 

"I'm  crazy  to  get  there." 

"To  the  front?" 

"It  would  take  three  months  of  training  at 
least  in  France.  I  want  to  get  it  over.  You've 
no  idea  how  tedious  the  work  here  gets,  or  how 
helpless  you  feel  training — training  while  those 
devils  over  there — " 


1 78  OVER  HERE 

"Well,  I  have,"  I  temporized,  "from  your 
letters.  The  war  comes  first  to  you,  doesn't  it, 
Tommy?"  I  added. 

"First,  last  and  all  the  time." 

"Where  do  I  come  in?" 

"You  don't  come  in — you're  me.     See?" 

"So  we  can  be  separated,  you  mean,  without 
it  making  much  difference?" 

"So  we  can  never  be  separated?" 

"Well,  I  guess  we  can't,"  I  said. 

"Do  I  go?" 

"Take  me  with  you." 

"That  might  be  arranged.  It  might  be  fixed 
up  for  you  to  come  over  later  with  that  Douglas 
girl.  You  could  take  up  one  of  the  shorter  nurs- 
ing courses  and  get  ready  pretty  quick.  Of  course, 
nobody  has  any  business  over  there  now  unless 
they  can  be  of  use." 

"Oh!  do  you  think  I  could?"  I  cried.  Then 
I  remembered.  "It  would  probably  be  better  if 
I  stayed  at  home  with  my  mother,"  I  said. 
"There  are  things  to  do  here." 


AUGUST  179 

"I  only  thought  you  might  want  to.  I'd  feel 
safer  if  you  were  with  your  parents." 

"It  isn't  the  safeness,"  I  said. 

"I  only  suggested  it.  I  don't  know  what  I'll 
strike,  of  course.  God  knows  I  don't  want  you 
anywhere  that  I  can't  personally  look  out  for 
you." 

"I  don't  want  you  anywhere  that  you  can't, 
Tommy,"  I  said. 

"Well,"  he  said,  holding  me  off  to  look  at  me 
somewhat  later  in  the  conversation,  "do  I  go  ?" 

"Of  course,"  I  said. 

We  had  a  week — seven  days  and  three 
hours — together  after  it  was  settled,  though  we 
did  not  know  how  long  it  was  going  to  be  until 
the  last  minute  of  course. 

Mother  and  father  went  off  to  the  seashore — 
he  for  a  week  and  she  for  the  rest  of  August 
and  September,  on  account  of  being  fortunate 
enough  to  be  invited  to  stay  that  long  and  being 
worn  to  a  frazzle,  or  something  as  near  a  frazzle, 
whatever  it  is,  as  mother  could  ever  be.  We  were 


180  OVER  HERE 

housekeeping  by  ourselves.  We  decided  not  to 
count  off  hours  and  minutes  but  to  live  out  those 
days  as  if  they  had  no  beginning  and  no  end,  and 
so  we  did.  The  weather  fortunately  got  quite 
cool  and  comfortable.  Cook  got  amiable,  and 
Bessie  positively  angelic,  especially  since  we  used 
to  send  her  away  and  wait  on  ourselves  at  dinner 
about  all  the  time.  So  for  the  first  time  we  were 
together  and  really  comfortable,  without  being1 
rushed  to  death.  Even  the  honeymoon  week, 
Tommy  was  doing  so  much  business  all  the  time 
that  we  had  to  snatch  our  time  in  between  it,  but 
now  we  could  loaf  and  invite  our  souls,  and  as 
Tommy  said — they  came. 

I  felt  as  if  I  had  never  had  my  husband  before. 
I  never  knew  him  before.  I  never  remotely 
dreamed  that  any  one  could  be — so  nice.  When 
you  love  a  person  at  first  you  don't  care  how  nice 
they  are  or  aren't  especially,  as  long  as  they  are 
yours,  and  you  can  fee  a  pig  about  them;  but 
that  feeling  changes.  You  find  you  have  to  have 
faith  in  what  they  are  outside  of  what  they  are 
to  you.  If  they  didn't  have  a  certain  amount  of 


AUGUST  181 

nobility  you  would  feel  degraded — you  couldn't 
help  it.  It  was  very  fortunate  for  me  that  I 
happened  to  get  my  eye  on  Tommy  instead  of  on 
somebody  less  worthy.  I  just  don't  see  how  I 
could  have  stood  loving  anybody  else,  or  how  I 
could  have  borne  being  parted  from  any  one 
•who  was  less  wonderful.  When  Tommy  goes 
abroad  I  go — in  his  veins,  and  when  I  stay  here 
quietly  waiting  for  something  he  doesn't  know  is 
going  to  happen,  he  is  beside  me  every  time  I 
draw  a  breath.  I  suppose  it  would  be  too  much 
to  ask  of  God  to  feel  like  that  about  your  hus- 
band and  have  him  with  you  too. 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  along  about  the  first  day. 
On  account  of  trying  not  to  be  a  human  hour- 
glass I  don't  know  exactly  when  anything  hap- 
pened, though  having  the  kind  of  mind  that 
usually  knows,  I  can  hit  it  pretty  near  in  looking 
back. — "There  is  something  in  my  soul  that  I  am 
not  telling  you." 

"Yes,  dear." 

"Shall  I  tell  you  now?" 

"Yes,  please." 


182  OVER  HERE 

"I  don't  feel  the  way  you  do  about  the  war." 
It's  funny  how  easy  it  is  to  say  the  hard  things 
when  you  get  right  down  to  them. 

"Don't  you?   How  do  you  feel?" 

"I  don't  care  about  it  the  way  I  do  about 
you." 

"I  should  hope  you  didn't." 

"Why?" 

"The  war  is  a  damnable  business." 

"Joan  of  Arc  put  it  before  everything." 

"Joan  of  'Arc  was  a  new  woman." 

"I  am  a  new  woman." 

"Not  that  kind  of  new." 

"This — this — it  worries  me,  Tommy.  I  am 
not  one  with  you,  am  I, — if  I  don't  put  the  war 
first?" 

"Do  you  think  for  one  minute  that  I  put  the 
war  first  in  that  sense?" 

"Why,  yes." 

"I  don't  put  anything  first, — but  you.  There 
is  love  and  there  is  work.  Sometimes  we  sacri- 
fice one  for  the  other — God  knows — but  there's 
no  comparison." 


AUGUST  183 

"I  thought  there  was,"  I  said,  "and  ought  to 
be." 

"No,"  Tommy  said,  "no,"  and  he  groaned. 
So  that  was  off  my  mind. 

Another  time  I  got  worried  about  being  a 
sport,  and  told  him  that. 

"I  am  afraid  to  be  without  you,"  I  told  him 
at  night,  waking  him  out  of  a  sound  sleep,  I  am 
ashamed  to  say,  to  confide  it  to  him.  "When  cer- 
tain things  happen  to  me  I  am  afraid  I  am  going 
to  be  too  much  afraid."  If  he  had  been  in  full 
possession  of  hi's  faculties  he  might  have  under- 
stood this  too  well,  but  being  still  practically  in 
the  arms  of  Morpheus  he  didn't  get  the  significance 
of  it.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  not  to  tell  about 
Obadiah — I  call  it  Obadiah  to  myself — because  I 
felt  it  would  make  it  harder  for  him  to  go,  and  of 
course  I  didn't  want  to  worry  him  any  further. 
"I  am  not  a  sport,  dear,"  I  said.  "And  I  am 
afraid  I  get  a  great  deal  of  credit  for  it  under 
false  pretenses." 

"You  are  a  sport,"  he  said  drowsily  and 
quarrelsomely. 


1 84  OVER  HERE 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  "would  you  mind  waking 
up — awfully?" 

"I  should,"  he  said,  "but  I  will.  What  is  it, 
dear?" 

"I  am  not  a  sport,"  I  said,  "I  am  going  to  be 
afraid  to  be  without  you.  I  want  you  to  know 
that." 

"My  God,"  Tommy  said.  "I  have  never 
known  a  sport  in  the  world  but  you,  but  you  must 
not  wake  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  and  think  of 
things  after  I  am  gone.  It  will  ruin  your  health. 
Healthy  human  beings  can't  afford  to  do  that. 
There's  something  about  the  middle  of  the  night 
that  will  put  you  on  the  bum  if  you  aren't  care- 
ful. We'll  neither  of  us  survive,  dear,  if  we  live 
through  too  many  of  them  consciously." 

"I've  heard  that  your  vitality  was  at  lowest 
ebb  then,"  I  said. 

"I'm  afraid  that  I'm  going  to  be  afraid,  too, 
dear,"  he  whispered  after  a  long  time.  "That 
damned  front  line." 

"You  won't  be,  Tommy,"  I  said. 

Then,  "I  won't  be,  Tommy,"  I  promised  him. 


AUGUST  185 

I  am  going  to  keep  my  promise.  It  was  crim- 
inal to  wake  him  out  of  his  lovely  sleep  when  in 
a  little  while  more  the  "cooties"  will  be  doing  it, 
I  suppose;  but  that  was  the  most  comforting 
conversation  we  had,  I  think.  I  can  live  by  it 
as  if  it  was  a  little  light  we  had  set  going.  Two 
people  couldn't  be  any  closer  than  we  were  after 
we  had  said  those  things  to  each  other,  and  the 
funny  thing  was  that  we  both  went  right  to  sleep 
in  the  middle  of  knowing  it. 

I  thought  we  might  be  going  to  have  the 
eighth  day  together  after  all.  All  day  on  the 
seventh  we  sat  gaspingly  waiting  for  the  notifi- 
cation that  Tommy's  boat  was  to  sail,  but  it  didn't 
come.  Father  was  in  town  at  his  club  at  the  end 
of  the  telephone  when  he  wasn't  in  his  office  ready 
to  do  anything  that  was  required  of  him,  but  by 
that  time  I  had  decided  in  my  own  mind  that 
Tommy  wouldn't  be  called  to  go  for  another  ten 
days  or  so.  I  don't  know  why  I  had,  but  I  had. 

Tommy  took  me  in  his  arms  before  he  told 
me,  but  of  course  he  had  told  me  by  merely 
doing  so. 


186  OVER  HERE 

"It's  to-night,"  he  said,  "we  go  on  board 
to-night." 

"Well,"  I  said. 

"Be  brave,  dear." 

"I  am,"  I  said. 

"I'm  not,"  he  said  miserably.  "Oh!  Beth, 
Beth,  Beth." 

"We  can  do  it,"  I  said. 

"You'd  better  come  over." 

"I  will  when  I  can,"  I  said. 

Fortunately  we  had  to  hustle  to  get  him  off 
and  that  took  up  our  minds. 

I  didn't  see  the  boat  sail.  Nobody  knew  when 
it  sailed.  I  think  I  felt  it  sail  at  about  four 
o'clock  that  next  morning.  If  it  wasn't  that  I 
don't  know  what  it  could  have  been. 

Father  took  me  down  to  the  dock  and  so  on 
to  the  boat.  We  were  next  of  kin,  and  could  go. 
At  the  last  moment  the  Richardsons  decided  they 
couldn't  stand  it. 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  "I  am  glad  you  married 
me.  Think  how  perfectly  terrible  it  would  have 
been  if  I  wasn't  legally  your  next  of  kin."  I  had 


AUGUST  187 

to  joke  with  him  because  he  was  so  all  in,  poor 
Tommy.  I  have  never  seen  him  so  cold — hands 
and  face  and  neck  and  throat — and  so  miserably 
shivering  I  put  my  veil  around  his  neck  over  his 
khaki  collar  and  he  let  it  be  there.  His  breath 
came  in  long  painful  gasps,  and  he  kept  trying  to 
control  it. 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  "y°u  mustn't  feel  like  this." 

"I'm  so  cold,"  he  said. 

The  boat  was  a  rather  smelly  one,  but  it 
looked  all  right.  Tommy's  room  was  forward 
and  comfortable. 

"I  wonder  what  kind  of  roommates  I  draw," 
he  said,  pointing  to  the  different  kit  bags  that 
were  crammed  in  beside  his.  I  never  knew,  of 
course. 

It  seems  strange  that  he  should  have  cried  and 
I  shouldn't  when  we  kissed  each  other  good-by. 

"Dear,  it's  only  for  a  little  while,  and  we  can 
bear  it,"  I  said. 

"Beth,"  he  said,  "Beth,  Beth,  Beth.  I  never 
loved  you  till  this  minute.  You're  such  a  sport; 
you — you  take  it  out  of  me." 


i88  OVER  HERE 

"That  will  be  all  right,"  I  said,  still  trying  to 
cheer  him  up. 

I  don't  know  what  our  last  words  were.  I 
guess  they  weren't  anything.  I  gave  poor  father 
a  dreadful  time  though,  by  going  out  of  business 
in  the  taxicab. 


CHAPTER   XI 

SEPTEMBER 

FATHER  came  in  unexpectedly  one  day  and 
found  me  knitting  with  pink  and  white  wool 
instead  of  the  universal  gray  or  brown.  I  had 
found  the  directions  in  a  book  and  was  sailing 
along  quite  unconcernedly  with  the  garment  it 
portrayed  when  I  was  caught  at  it. 

"What  are  you  knitting,  Piggie  ?"  he  inquired 
carelessly. 

"A — a  soldier  sweater,"  I  said,  and  I  held  it 
up.  Then  I  bent  my  head  again  quickly  and  went 
on  working. 

Father  came  over  and  stood  beside  me,  looking 
down  at  me.  He  was  very  much  affected. 

"It's  all  right,  daddy,"  I  said,  "don't  worry." 

"Have  you  told  your  mother?" 

"I  haven't  told  anybody.  Doctor  Fitch  told 
me."  I  didn't  think  Roland  counted — since  he 
only  guessed. 

189 


OVER  HERE 


"Didn't  Tommy  know?" 

"I  thought  it  would  give  him  too  much  to  be 
anxious  about." 

"So  you  let  him  go  without  telling  him." 

"Do  you  think  that  was  very  wicked?"  I  said. 

"He  might  not  have  gone  if  he  had  known." 

"Yes,  that  was  what  I  was  afraid  of." 

Father  held  out  his  arms  to  me.  I  tried  to  go 
into  them  on  account  of  not  hurting  his  feelings, 
but  I  didn't  get  it  accomplished. 

"I  can't  about  that,"  I  said,  "not  yet." 

Father's  eyes  filled. 

"My  funny,  brave,  wise,  little  daughter,"  he 
said 

"Oh  !  I  can  about  that,"  I  said  and  we  hugged 
each  other  vociferously. 

He  wanted  to  send  for  mother  in  the  country 
and  have  her  come  home  at  once  and  be  told.  He 
wanted  to  send  me  to  the  country,  et  cetera,  but 
I  said  : 

"Father,  I  want  to  stay  right  on  this  one  spot 
where  letters  and  cables  will  reach  me  quickest, 
and  not  be  bothered." 


SEPTEMBER  191 

And  he  saw  my  point. 

I  was  perfectly  calm  about  Tommy's  being1  on 
the  water.  I  used  to  imagine  circumstantially 
how  it  would  be  if  a  submarine  periscope  poked 
its  nose  above  water  and  the  passengers  heard  a 
dull  report  and  saw  a  thick  cloud  of  smoke,  and 
then  all  was  confusion  and  panic  and  darkness, 
but  the  picture  didn't  get  me  at  all.  I  knew  it 
wasn't  going  to  happen.  I  was  sure  beyond  all 
reason  that  such  a  danger  could  not  be.  I  read 
all  the  submarine  reports  too,  and  it  wasn't  be- 
cause so  many  of  the  transports  had  reached  the 
other  side  safely.  It  was  just  my  feeling,  and  it 
was  the  right  one  too.  In  due  time  we  got  a 
cable  merely  dated  Sans  Origine  which  I  thought 
at  first  must  be  a  desert  island  or  something,  that 
said  "Arrived  safely."  Imagine  a  cable  from  my 
Tommy  marked  Sans  Origine.  If  that  was  with- 
out origin  then  nothing  in  this  world  has  any.  I 
shall  have  letters  soon,  and  letters  from  Tommy 
are  beautiful  and  living  things.  Any  one  who 
has  not  had  letters  from  Tommy  can  not  know 
how  warming  and  strengthening  they  are.  The 


192  OVER  HERE 

unworthy  idea  is  with  me  that  I  shall  have  to  let 
Mrs.  Richardson  read  them,  and  that  she  will 
show  them  to  Mrs.  Godfrey.  "Does  it  matter?" 
I  say  to  myself  again  and  again,  and  the  answer 
is  always,  "Yes,  it  does  matter.  It  matters 
awfully."  I  have  not  been  to  see  Mrs.  Richardson 
for  a  while  now.  I  am  afraid  she  will  make  a 
fuss  over  me  and  I  don't  want  her  to. 

Going  to  France — father  says  Tommy  prob- 
ably landed  at  Boulogne — seems  a  terrible  thing 
in  prospect,  but  when  you  have  actually  done  it 
by  proxy  it  doesn't  seem  so  bad.  There  we  are, 
Tommy  in  the  flesh  and  me  in  the  spirit,  with  our 
composite  feet  on  the  soil  of  France.  It's  a  queer 
thing  that  France  doesn't  choke  you  up  now  so 
much  as  it  used  to  before  we  got  in.  It's  our 
happy  hunting-ground  now,  and  we're  going  over 
there  to  hunt  the  Hun.1 

"Over  there — over  there — 
And  we  won't  come  back  till  it's  over — over 
there." 


SEPTEMBER  193 

I  don't  want  Tommy  to  be  too  bitterly  dis- 
appointed, but  I  rather  agree  with  Lester  that  the 
war  is  practically  finished  now.  The  press  is  full 
of  peace  feelers.  The  German  reply  to  the  Pope 
had  a  very  specious  and  fishy  sound, — but  still 
the  argument  goes  on,  and  still  the  Germans  want 
to  talk  about  it,  and  this  talking  about  it,  seems 
to  me,  shows  which  way  the  wind  blows.  Tommy 
won't  think  it  is  right,  I  know,  but  still  if  it  comes 
he  will  come  back  to  me,  and  we  can  talk  it  over 
together. 

Father  says  that  if  the  war  ends  now,  America 
will  be  spoiled  for  life;  that  if  we  once  get  the 
idea  that  our  just  holding  up  our  hand  is  enough 
to  stop  a  war,  we  will  never  be  any  good  again  in 
any  way.  He  says  that  we  are  cock-sure  and  tin- 
thorough  and  otherwise  objectionable  enough 
now,  nationally  speaking,  but  that  if  the  war  is 
disposed  of  by  our  intervention  before  we've  had 
any  real  chance  to  fight,  why,  we  might  just  as 
well  adopt  Something  for  Nothing  as  our  slogan 
and  give  up  trying  to  pretend  we're  any  good  at 
all.  He  raves  and  raves  over  our  national  streak 


194  OVER  HERE 

of  yellow  and  the  way  we  are  now  showing  it  in 
various  ways.  I  know  Tommy  wouldn't  think  so, 
but  then  he  wouldn't  think  the  war  was  going  to 
stop  either.  He  won't  believe  it  when  it  does 
unless  Germany  just  announces  that  she's  beaten, 
herself,  and  willing  to  deliquesce  from  the  map. 
^Deliquesce — evaporate  a  la  the  homely  snail 
•when  you  put  salt  on  him.) 

I  suppose  I  rather  slump  in  my  highest  feel- 
ings when  Tommy  isn't  with  me.  I  am  going  to 
try  to  be  all  that  he  expects  of  me,  and  just  as 
brave  as  he  is  but  I  am  not  going  to  begin  right 
away.  I  am  going  to  indulge  my  lower  feelings 
just  long  enough  to  get  somewhat  rested  in  my 
highest  ones.  I  am  doing  practical  things  like 
getting  up  money  for  the  library  drive.  I  think  it 
is  fine  to  buy  the  soldiers  books,  because  they  can 
be  used  in  civil  life  afterward. 

Doctor  Fitch  and  I  have  nice  little  conver- 
sations together.  He  says  I  am  healthy,  and  I 
think  I  am  now.  He  says  that  he  thinks  I  will 
find  that  I  will  grow  very  fond  of  Obadiah.  I 
suppose  I  shall  be,  but  gracious,  there's  a  whole 


SEPTEMBER  195 

lot  to  be  considered  about  him.  I  guess  he  can 
have  a  local  habitation  with  my  family,  and  a 
name — pro  tern  and  sur — has  been  already  pro- 
vided for  him,  but  after  all — who  is  he  going  to 
be  anyway  ?  A  baby  at  first,  I  suppose,  and  then 
a  person — like  other  persons.  The  whole  busi- 
ness is  very  queer  and  a  trifle  alarming.  I  don't 
think  about  it  very  much — especially  not  in  the 
middle  of  the  night.  Obeying  Tommy's  orders 
about  midnight  machinations  of  the  brain. 

I  wonder  what  good  there  is  in  this  going  to 
hear  music,  and  strengthening  your  mentality  and 
doing  things  like  that?  I've  given  up  coffee  and 
tea  and  setting-up  exercises  though  I  do  take  a  few 
of  the  milder  ones.  Also  I've  stopped  fooling1 
with  guns  in  any  way.  I  think  that  I  will  take  a 
chance  on  strengthening  my  mentality  and  not  try 
to  improve  myself  artistically  and  musically. 
You  would  feel  so  foolish  going  to  a  concert  or 
an  art  exhibition  with  a  direct  end  of  that  kind  in 
view.  I  don't  see  why  it  isn't  a  good  idea  to  be- 
have just  as  naturally  as  you  possibly  can  and 
leave  the  rest  to  Fate.  Everybody  always  says, 


196  OVER  HERE 

"My  parents  never  consulted  me  about  coming 
into  the  world," — but — how  could  they?  There 
are  lots  of  things  that  I  would  like  to  get  Oba- 
diah's  views  on  with  relation  to  our  mutual  fu- 
ture together,  but  it  can't  be  done.  So  as  George 
says,  "Why  worry?" 

Eileen  is  trying  her  best  to  get  me  to  go  over 
with  her,  and  thinks  I'm  a  weak  sort  of  piker  not 
to  be  willing  to.  She  knows  I  could  work  it  if 
I  wanted  to.  "Man  proposes  and  God  disposes," 
but  it  doesn't  do  her  any  good  to  tell  her  that, 
unless  I  tell  her  what  God  disposes,  and  if  I  did 
that — she'd  know. 

"How  could  you  let  Tommy  go  to  the 
front?"  Dolly  Grainger  keeps  asking  me.  "Why 
didn't .  you  use  your  influence  with  the  men  of 
your  family  to  keep  them  out  of  this  horrid  war? 
It's  all  right  now  that  they  can  parade  around  and 
wear  a  uniform,  but  when  we  are  at  peace  again 
— what  then?  They  will  have  lost  so  many  years 
of  their  lives  with  nothing  to  show  for  it." 

"Do  you  talk  that  way  to  Roland?"  I  asked 
her. 


SEPTEMBER  197 

"Well,  you  know  how  men  are"  she  said, 
"they  are  crazy  to  get  into  any  kind  of  excite- 
ment without  stopping  to  think  how  much  trouble 
they  are  going  to  have  before  they  get  out  of  it." 

"Do  you  talk  that  way?"  I  said. 

"Do  you?"  she  asked. 

"I  don't  feel  that  way,"  I  said. 

"But  you  don't  talk  the  way  you  do  feel — • 
whatever  it  is — to  any  man  or  boy,  do  you?" 

"Pretty  near,"  I  said,  "to  Tommy." 

"Oh,  go  on!  I'll  bet  you've  got  the  biggest 
kind  of  a  secret  from  him  right  now." 

I  opened  my  mouth  to  reply, — but  what's  the 
use  of  trying  to  answer  "yes"  or  "no"  to  any 
question  of  Dolly's.  Conversation,  after  all,  isn't 
a  mere  kind  of  trick  to  catch  you  in. 

"I  heard  of  a  new  atrocity  the  other  day,"  she 
continued  flightily  which  is  her  fashion,  "a  hor- 
ror !  Want  to  hear  about  it  ?" 

"No,"  I  said,  "I  don't." 

"I  don't  think  marriage  has  improved  you  a 
great  deal,  Betty" — I  hate  being  called  Betty — 
she  said,  "to  put  it  frankly." 


ig8  OVER  HERE 

"Well,  don't  put  it  frankly,  then,"  I  said. 

Whereupon  our  conversation  terminated,  with 
mutual  ill  feeling. 

Billy  Douglas  is  circulating  around  in  the 
same  breathless  and  intriguante  fashion.  Robert 
has  not  yet  been  called — to  Eileen's  shame.  She 
did  so  want  him  to  enlist  and  get  a  good  start  at 
something  before  it  came  to  his  hanging  on  like 
this.  But  Billy  wouldn't  have  it.  I  don't  know 
what  is  going  to  happen  to  Billy.  She  has  so 
much  good  in  her  that  I  am  interested  to  see  if 
any  of  it  will  now  be  brought  out.  She  is  being 
very  nice  to  Marcella  Harcourt  whom  she  met  at 
my  house  for  the  first  time  early  in  the  spring. 
I'm  glad  of  that  for  Marcella  is  a  nice  girl,  and 
her  heart  is  broken,  though  she  is  filling  up  her 
life  quite  capably  with  other  things.  If  she  were 
married  and  had  Obadiah  to  look  forward  to — 
would  she  feel  better  or  worse?  Better,  I  think. 

New  York  meantime  is  full  of  Japanese  and 
all  Fifth  Avenue  is  strung  with  moon-shaped 
lanterns  and  cleverly  arranged  decorations.  Vis- 
count Ishii  is  making  speeches  and  genuflections 


SEPTEMBER  199 

all  over  the  place  about  our  polite  action  in  get- 
ting into  the  fray.  Since  but  a  short  time  ago 
there  was  a  good  deal'  of  conjecture  about  the 
prospect  of  Japan  engaging  in  a  little  fray  with  us 
on  the  side,  this  is  very  gratifying,  though  of 
course  it  doesn't  really  mean  a  thing.  So  few, 
things  do  along  that  line.  The  perfidious  Ger- 
mans would  have  sent  a  commission  over  here 
if  it  had  been  possible,  I  suppose.  Speaking  of 
perfidious  Germans,  Fraulein  was  over  to  see  us 
the  other  day.  We  had  a  fight  over  Sweden, 
which  I  know  nothing  at  all  about,  and  a  slight 
argument  about  the  Kaiser's  God,  for  which  I 
could  have  had  her  arrested  if  I  had  had  a  mind 
to.  She  certainly  can  be  disagreeable  about  Eng- 
land— good  old  England,  and  she  is. 

"The  whole  point  of  the  matter  is,  Fraulein," 
I  said,  "that  you  come  from  a  race  of — of  scien- 
tific barbarians,  and  you  don't  have  any  imagina- 
tion about  people  whose  feelings  are  naturally 
refined,"  and  with  that  I  left  her.  It  is  the  whole 
point,  too.  I  was  so  mad  because  she  said  that 
the  Germans  had  practically  captured  the  Gulf  of 


200  OVER  HERE 

Riga  that  I  could  have  done  anything  to  her.  I 
am  afraid  poor  Obadiah  has  chosen  one  very 
belligerent  parent  at  least. 

A1  letter  from  Tommy  at  last, — opened  by  that 
horrid,  never  to  be  forgiven  or  tolerated  crea- 
ture— the  censor.  All  my  letters  to  Tommy  and 
Tommy's  letters  to  me  have  to  be  opened  and 
read  and  words  scratched  out  in  them  by  that 
abominable  person,  and  it  isn't  always  the  same 
censor,  either.  I  can't  tell  now  what  certain  spots 
on  the  letters  mean;  whether  they  are  Tommy's 
bread  and  butter  or  his  tears,  or  merely  traces 
of  an  official  lack  of  refinement  against  which 
there  is  no  defense. 

"Somewhere  in  France."  Well,  he  landed, 
and  he  loves  me,  censor  or  no  censor.  He  isn't 
very  much  of  a  describer,  of  course,  but  I  gather 
that  a  lot  of  other  people  landed  with  him  or 
were  already  there  when  he  arrived!  He  didn't 
have  much  excitement  going  over  but  the  food 
was  unexpectedly  good,  and  the  boat  unex- 
pectedly unsteady — in  other  words  he  was  sea- 
sick,— though  he  didn't  say  so,  and  got  better  and 


SEPTEMBER  201 

ate  the  food  after  a  suitable  interval.  He  heard 
tales  of  pseudo  lifeboats  with  fake  men  in  them 
concealing  periscopes  and  torpedoes  in  their 
midst,  and  was  a  little  disappointed  at  not  sight- 
ing one.  Well,  thank  heavens!  he  didn't. 

What  will  he  see  before  he  gets  home  to  me? 
I  refuse  to  read  about  the  war  any  more,  but 
once  or  twice  in  Brentano's  I've  snooped  about 
the  tables  and  read  the  literature  on  the  covers 
of  some  of  the  personal  narratives.  "Two  years 
in  Hell  and  back  with  a  smile."  Dozens  of  books 
by  men  who  have  come  back.  Tommy  will  come 
back  of  course.  I  have  never  had  the  smallest 
moment  of  doubt  about  that,  but  sometimes  I  get 
into  a  regular  cowardly  panic  about  what  he  may 
get  into  before  he  does.  Well,  there  will  be 
some  months  of  training  before  he  gets  anywhere 
near  the  front  lines, — and  in  those  months  what 
may  not  happen  ?  I  have  done  my  duty.  I  have. 
Supposing  peace  coming  now  is  only  a  patched  up 
peace  and  our  not  finishing  the  business  now  will 
mean  that  war  will  break  out  again  in  a  worse 
form?  Tommy  and  I  might  not  live  to  see  it. 


202  OVER  HERE 

We'd  have  our  time  together, — but  Obadiah 
might  have  to  go  to  war  in  that  case.  Well, 
that's  a  thought.  Still  Obadiah  is  only  Obadiah 
— and  Tommy  is  Tommy. 

Sometimes  I  get  to  wondering  if  I'm  grown 
up  enough  to  love  Tommy  the  way  I  do  without 
— spontaneous  combustion  or  something.  I 
hadn't  got  my  hair  up  on  the  top  of  my  head 
when  I  knew  that  Tommy  was  all  there  was  to  it. 
I  knew  it  in  my  soul  before  I  ever  acknowledged 
it  to  my  brain.  In  fact,  I  told  him  so  before  I 
ever  told  myself.  Now  I  can  just  barely  manage 
to  live  without  him.  I  can  manage  but  it's  rather 
up-hill  work  and  dwarfs  everything  else.  My 
love  grows  bigger  all  the  time,  and  I  am  a  very 
small  container  for  it.  I  have  awful  hours  some- 
times when  I  dread  the  suffering  of  caring  the 
way  I  care,  and  am  going  on  caring.  Just  the 
waiting  around  for  letters  and  the  longing — long- 
ing for  my  dearest.  Even  a  grown-up  woman 
would  have  all  she  could  do  to  stand  it.  There 
are  lots  of  other  girls'  husbands  "Somewhere  in 
France,"  but  they  can  bear  it  because  their  hus- 


SEPTEMBER  203 

bands  are  only  commonplace  husbands.    Mine  is 
Tommy. 

"  'Nother  Place  in  France."  He  loves  me  just 
as  much.  It's  sweet  of  him  to  ignore  the  censor 
on  my  behalf.  I  guess  he  knows  I  couldn't  live 
if  he  didn't.  He  seems  to  be  in  a  kind  of  jumble 
of  mud  and  getting  settled,  and  meeting  all  kinds 
of  natives  from  all  the  countries  of  the  earth, 
Zouaves  and  Singalese  and  the  Foreign  Legion — 
whatever  they  may  be, — and  hobnobbing  with 
majors  and  staff  colonels  and  people  like  that. 
Anyhow,  he  describes  them  with  considerable 
pride.  He  makes  light  of  any  discomforting  ex- 
periences he  might  have  had.  So  far  no  cooties. 
The  soldiers  I  have  read  letters  or  reports  from 
on  the  subject  take  these  animals  very  much  as 
a  matter  of  course,  but  they  are  one  of  the  things 
I  can't  help  thinking  about  in  the  tabooed  mid- 
night hours.  It  doesn't  seem  possible  that 
Tommy  could  be  going  to  have  to  suffer  from 
them.  Maybe  he  won't.  He's  heard  shell  fire 
in  the  distance  like  a  subway  explosion  and  didn't 
mind  it.  His  letter  was  so  sort  of  fresh  and  crisp 


204  OVER  HERE 

sounding  that  I  had  a  kind  of  thrill  of  joy  at 
having  let  him  go.  Supposing  he  was  just  plod- 
ding along  here,  and  then  got  drafted  and  then 
was  dragged  around  this  country — half  unwill- 
ingly because  he  hadn't  had  the  strength  of  mind 
to  take  the  initiative.  Oh!  No,  if  you're  going 
to  play  ball, — you  want  to  play  ball — that's  all. 
Tommy  thinks  the  whole  outlook  over  there  is 
very  confused  but  very  promising.  The  men 
are  crude  and  untutored — but  keen.  They'll  lick 
into  shape  like  a  breeze,  and  then  "Over  the  Top 
and  give  'em  Hell,"  and  it's  Oblivion  or  Berlin 
for  poor  little  Fritzie.  Oh!  Obadiah!  Obadiah! 
if  it  wasn't  for  you  I  could  get  i'n  line  for  a 
French  Cross  of  my  own.  As  it  is,  we'll  let 
your  father  do  the  honors  for  the  family.  He's 
•capable  of  it.  I  guess  I've  never  called  him  that 
before,  but  that's  what  he  is,  Obadiah,  your 
patriarchal,  and  I  trust  your  also  fond  and  doting 
parent. 

Lester  came  around  to  see  how  I  was  getting 
on.    He  made  strange  financial  allusions  at  inter- 


SEPTEMBER  205 

vals  from  which  I  presently  inferred  that  he 
wanted  to  present  me  with  some  money. 

"Lester,"  I  said,  "what  do  you  think  I  am? 
An  East  Si'de  woman  in  a  shawl  ?" 

"I  can't  tell  you  what  I  think  you  are,"  he 
rejoined  with  some  spirit,  "you're  married  now." 

"And  a  good  job,  too,"  I  murmured. 

"I  don't  care  how  facetious  you  may  get,"  he 
said,  "I  just  want  you  to  know  that  I've  come  into 
some  money  of  my  own,  and  it  can  be  loaned  to 
you,  and  never  be  repaid  of  course,  in  time  of 
need.  If  anything  should  happen  to  your  father's 
business — " 

"My  father's  business  ?"  I  said. 

"All  businesses  excepting  munitions  are  on 
the  blink,  you  know." 

"Have  you  heard  of  anything  happening  to 
my  father's  business?"  I  asked,  remembering 
father's  expression  of  late. 

"Well,  rumors  get  around,  you  know,"  he 
said. 

"Well,  Lester,"  I  said,  "if  the  time  ever  comes 


206  OVER  HERE 

•when  I  have  to  have  money  for  anything  special, 
and  I  can't  get  it  of  any  one  else  I  will  appeal  to 
you." 

"Thank  you,"  he  said  huskily. 

"But  don't  you  see,  Lester,  it  would  be  a  queer 
thing1  to  do.  I  like — love  my  husband  just  the 
way  that  you  said — that  you — " 

"I  know  you  do,"  Lester  said.  "That's  the 
reason  that  I  want  to  help  you.  I — I  want  you 
to  be  happy." 

"Lester,"  I  said,  "I've  never  half  appreciated 
you." 

"That's  all  right,"  he  said. 

But  it  isn't  all  right.  I  have  broken  Lester's 
heart,  and  Tommy,  my  liege  lord  and  sovereigrt 
master,  has  my  heart  with  him — over  there, 
"Somewhere  in  France." 

I  think  Life  is  tragic. 


CHAPTER   XII 

OCTOBER 

"¥  A  TELL,  the  other  night  I  got  out  of  my  warm 
Y  V  bed  with  the  comforting  blue  puff  folded 
over  me  like  an  envelope  of  which  I  was  the  long 
and  I  trust  somewhat  interesting  contents,  and 
closing  the  window  at  which  a  blizzard  was  enter- 
ing with  undue  celerity,  I  sat  down  in  my  kimono 
and  bare  toes,  and  wrote  Tommy  about  Obadiah. 
The  time  had  come  to  do  it.  I  couldn't  have 
done  it  before  or  put  it  off  any  later. 

"Dear  Tommy,"  I  said.  "Please  close  your 
eyes  and  imagine  your  lawful  wedded  lady  friend 
in  her  lawful  accustomed  place  telling  you  some- 
thing; and  please  imagine  what  it  is."  A  line  of 
stars.  "Have  you  ?"  More  stars.  "Are  you  glad  ? 
I  am,  I  think.  Please  tell  me  in  so  many  words 
that  you  know  what  I  mean.  Put  it  down  on 
207 


208  OVER  HERE 

paper.  I  can't  because  of  the  censor,  and  I 
couldn't  anyway. 

"That's  why  I  couldn't  think  of  going  abroad 
when  you  broached  the  question.  That's  why  my 
health  acted  up  so.  I  am  perfectly  normal  now, 
however,  eating,  sleeping  and  not  worrying,  and 
Doctor  Fitch  looks  after  me  and  talks  things 
over. 

"I  think  I  know  where  your  last  letter  was 
from.  Father  of  course  follows  your  supposed 
trail  with  maps  all  the  time.  Personally,  I  want 
to  see  you."  A  line  of  tears,  which,  however, 
I  don't  think  spotted.  "I  have  no  secrets  from  you 
now,  so  I  will  tell  you  that  I  like  you  better  than 
the  war.  You  needn't  nevertheless  turn  around 
and  come  home  before  you  have  had  a  crack  at 
Fraulein's  compatriots.  My  nerve  is  pretty  good, 
thank  you.  I  guess  we  both  meant  it  when  we 
promised  not  to  be  afraid.  So  let's  make  a  bar- 
gain not  to  worry.  You  are  in  the  locket  around 
my  neck.  Really  in  it.  Am  I  inscribed  on  your 
identification  disk  or  am  I  in  the  case  of  your 


OCTOBER  209 

wrist  watch?  The  answer  is  'neither.'  I  know  I 
am  beating  in  your  heart — Oh!  Tommy,  my 
Tommy,  you  are  beating  in  mine. 

"Lovingly,  The  Gazelle."  (I  try  to  be  a  little 
funny  at  the  end  of  my  letters  so  he  will  finish 
them  with  a  smile.) 

"P.  S.  He  is  going  to  be  very  nice." 

When  I  got  back  into  bed  I  thought  I  had  per- 
haps killed  myself  by  writing  it  at  all.  I  shivered 
and  shook  and  went  into  a  thousand  pieces  as  I 
have  never  done  before,  but  I  suppose  it  was  just 
nervousness.  At  any  rate,  I  lived  to  tell  the  tale. 

Roland  is  off  to  France  with  the  artillery  de- 
tachment for  which  he  elects  to  be  a  gunner.  His 
mother,  who  is  very  fond  of  him  I  guess,  but  not 
very  well  acquainted  with  him  on  account  of  lead- 
ing such  a  busy  life  among  our  well-known  social 
circles,  made  an  awful  scene  on  the  dock  and 
had  to  be  gagged  and  bound  as  it  were,  before 
they  could  get  her  home.  Roland  when  he  came 
here  kissed  my  forehead  and  my  hands  and  told 


210  OVER  HERE 

me  to  be  good,  and  I  told  him  that  next  to  Tommy 
he  was  the  one  that  seemed  to  me  to  have  the 
goods. 

"Well,  then,"  he  said,  "I'll  deliver  them." 

"Cross  your  heart,"  I  said. 

"Cross  yours,"  he  promised. 

"You're — my  family  Bible,  you  know,  Beth," 
he  said,  "you — you  are  getting  to  look  like  a 
madonna  now." 

"I'll  let  you  call  me  Beth  then,"  I  said,  which 
is  really  Tommy's  name  for  me. 

"You  are  getting  to  look  like  a  madonna." 

I  closed  my  eyes. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "pray  for  me  then." 

"I  will,"  he  said  huskily;  and  I  knew  he 
would. 

George  is  still  hanging  around  the  docks  like 
a  regular  wharf  rat  and  nothing  happens  to  his 
part  of  the  naval  service.  He  says  he  would 
have  got  more  out  of  it  if  he  had  taken  service 
as  a  porter  on  a  Fall  River  line  steamer,  but  I 
suppose  his  time  will  come.  His  mother,  being; 
poor  but  honest  like  my  own,  seems  better  able  to 


OCTOBER  211 

bear  up  under  the  idea  than  Roland's  parents, 
though  she  is  quite  intimate  with  him. 

Speaking  of  mothers,  mine  was  very  good  to 
me  when  she  got  home  from  the  country.  She 
and  father  seemed  to  have  a  reunion  over  my 
affairs,  and  it  gave  them  a  great  deal  in  common 
to  talk  over.  I  always  like  to  see  my  dear  par- 
ents getting  together  over  something  congenial. 
Mother  was  a  little  broken  up  because  I  hadn't 
found  her  more  necessary  to  my  scheme  of  exist- 
ence under  the  circumstances,  but  as  I  pointed  out 
to  her  there  was  nothing  to  do  about  i't,  except 
to  smile  and  make  up  plenty  of  good-looking 
garments. 

"I'm  not  very  close  to  you,  Beth,"  she  said, 
"you  used  to  tell  me  everything." 

"I  don't  need  to  tell  anybody  anything,  now," 
I  said.  "I  don't  do  those  things  that  I  have  to 
confide  and  be  forgiven  for.  I  have  put  away 
childish  things,  perhaps." 

"You've  grown  beyond  me." 

I  kissed  her  but  did  not  contradict  her.  I'm 
a  war  scarred  veteran  now  in  my  secret  soul. 


212  OVER  HERE 

The  war  got  what  it  was  after  from  me.  Mother's 
just  played  with  it.  We  don't  speak  just  exactly 
the  same  language. 

"Mother,"  I  said,  "let  father  go." 

She  stared  at  me. 

"Nonsense,"  she  said,  "there's  nothing  he 
could  do  at  his  age." 

"Let  him  try,"  I  said;  "give  him  the  satis- 
faction of  finding  it  out  for  himself." 

"Don't  be  silly,"  she  said.  "What  would  we 
do?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  said,  "but  I'd  be  willing  to 
do  it  if  you  would." 

It  was  no  use,  though.  Mother  is  perfectly 
sweet,  and  does  all  the  minor  details  of  her  duty, 
but  she  wouldn't  give  up  the  last  thing,  or  know 
that  it  was  there  to  give  up.  She's  right  for  her, 
and  I  am  right  for  me,  I  suppose.  I  wish  we 
could  trade  even. 

There  seems  to  be  practically  no  sugar  in  the 
world,  and  one's  grocer  sells  one  a  pound  re- 
luctantly. Mother  has  evolved  a  little  scheme  of 


OCTOBER  213 

tipping  with  sugar.  We  use  as  little  as  possible, 
and  get  it  from  three  or  four  places,  so  now  when 
the  cook  or  the  scrub  lady  or  the  elevator  man 
needs  a  little  bonus  mother  gives  them  a  pound 
of  sugar  where  she  formerly  gave  them  fifty 
cents,  and  they  are  much  more  grateful  to  her 
than  they  ever  were  for  the  mere  lucre.  The 
poor  simply  can't  get  sugar.  We  are  beginning 
to  have  meatless  days,  and  wheatless  days,  and  I 
am  so  corn  fed  that  cock-a-doodle-do  will  soon 
be  my  natural  form  of  expression.  Before  mother 
came  home  I  got  the  household  running  on  this 
war  basis.  Honey,  and  only  half  the  wheat  we 
used  to  eat,  and  no  meat  for  lunches  and  never 
any  kind  of  waste.  I  am  quite  executive  when  I 
turn  my  mind  to  it,  and  though  I  manage  to  cook 
by  the  Montessori  method  I  must  say  that  it  works 
fine. 

Some  day,  some  day  will  my  Tommy  be  a 
civilian  and  shall  we  sit  down  to  a  snowy  little 
table-cloth  hemmed  by  me,  with  a  deft  meal  orig- 
inated by  me  set  before  us,  with  nobody  else  any- 


214  OVER  HERE 

where  around  and  our  own  housekeeping  ar- 
rangements than  which  nothing  could  be  more 
ornamental,  spread  all  around  us, — high  chair 
and  all? 

Roses  clambering  all  over  our  roof,  and  high 
set  leaded  windows  with  little  white  curtains 
blown  lightly  by  the  wind,  and  a  slight  litter  of 
me  and  Tommy  and  our  respective  dogs  and  golf 
sticks  and — and  Obadiahs  spread  all  over  the 
place.  This  is  certainly  a  very  logical  want.  It 
sounds  rather  messy,  but  it  wouldn't  be.  I  am  a 
very  neat  housekeeper,  but  not  a  fidget.  I  could 
make  Tommy  love  it  so. 

More  letters  from  Tommy.  Telling  me  about 
a  great  many  things  that  I  don't  know  anything 
about,  but  ought  to.  He's  beginning  to  talk 
French  as  a  part  of  the  day's  work.  "Jusqu'aw 
bout/'  he  says  at  intervals.  "Jusqu'au  bout."  To 
the  end,  that  means.  To  the  end — what  end  ?  Oh ! 
my  God — can't  that  end  come  pretty  soon?  I 
don't  mean  to  swear,  but  there  isn't  any  other  way 
to  say  some  things.  "Coiite  que  coute."  Cost 
what  it  may. 


OCTOBER  215 

"We're  beginning  to  think,  now  that  we  are 
actually  on  the  spot,"  Tommy  says,  "that  it's  up 
to  the  people  who  are  not  in  uniform  to  win  this 
war.  There's  something  that's  got  to  beat  Prus- 
sian concentration  at  its  own  game,  on  its  own 
level.  Spirit — that's  what  it's  got  to  be.  Un- 
failing, unflagging,  untiring  inspiration  behind 
the  endeavor.  Every  man,  every  woman  of  the 
Allied  nations  has  got  to  put  himself  or  herself 
into  the  effort.  We've  got  to  believe  in  our  war 
every  waking  and  sleeping  minute.  Then  God 
will  back  us  up.  It's  God  and  the  devil  waging 
war.  That's  what  it  is." 

Tommy,  Tommy,  Tommy,  I'm  trying  to  keep 
my  end  up.  I'm  not  so  whole-souled  about  it  as 
you  are,  but  I'll  try. 

"We're  in  billets  now,  and  consistently  busy. 
France  certainly  has  been  battered  up  a  good 
deal.  It  would  break  your  heart,  and  still  it  isn't 
quite  as  excruciating  as  you  imagine  it  is  going  to 
be.  There's  something  encouraging  even  about  a 


216  .     OVER  HERE 

hole  in  the  earth  that  is  healing  itself  over,  and 
these  devastated  towns  and  broken  people  are 
now  in  the  charge  of  those  whose  sacred  trust  it 
is  to  set  the  world  going  again,  and  make  it  right 
as  nearly  as  possible.  Those  who  are  gone,  are 
out  of  it.  Those  who  survive  have  seen  and 
known  what  they  have,  and  yet  have  the  triumph 
of  survival.  C'est  la  guerre. — Dear,  it  isn't  all 
wrong,  nor  it  isn't  all  right,  but  it  isn't  all — bad. 
Whatever  you  and  I  think  about  the  war,  we 
think  this. 

"You're  first,  though," 

He  puts  that  in  his  letters  at  intervals  in  mem- 
ory of  that  midnight  discussion  we  had.  He 
knows  what  I  want,  and  he  says  it 

"Sometimes,  in  fact  most  all  of  the  time,  I 
think  it  was  sheer  madness  for  me  to  have  ac- 
cepted a  captaincy.  It  would  have  been  better 
and  wiser  for  me  to  have  taken  a  lieutenancy,  but 
it  is  too  late  now.  A  captain  can't  make  mistakes, 
and  get  away  with  them.  I  am  beginning  to 


OCTOBER  217 

realize  the  long  list  of  mistakes  there  are  and  to 
quaver.  Not  really.  I'm  your  Tommy  that  you 
put  the  heart  into,  and  it's  there,  dear;  it's  there 
where  you  put  it. 

"I  don't  want  to  write  too  many  descriptions 
of  things,  for  fear  you  will  be  painfully  visualiz- 
ing the  place  I  described  in  my  letter  before  last, 
while  I  am  in  still  quite  another  Somewhere  in 
France,  and  loving  you  better  than  I  did  the  time 
before,  at  which  you  are  still  sticking.  It  grows 
on  me  like  anything,  you  know,  all  the  time, 
especially  when  sleeping  and  dreaming.  That  we 
are  together  in  our  dreams  goes  without  saying. 

"Still  here's  where  I  burst  into  literature. 
We're  near  a  town,  just  on  the  edge  of  it,  quite  a 
way  back  from  the  lines,  but  en  route.  It  is  all 
very,  very  dirty, — muddy,  that  is.  I  thought 
Plattsburg  was  muddy,  but  I  didn't  know  the 
meaning  of  the  word  at  that  time.  The  town 
itself  is  very — chatty.  The  little  shops  are  full 
of  women  with  their  tongues  hung  in  the  middle 
who  start  them  going  and  then  run  about  and 
leave  them.  They  talk  French  suspiciously  tinged 


218  OVER  HERE 

with  (line  deleted  by  the  censor)  also  the  most 
amazing  English  and  the  most  extraordinary 
mixtures,  as  if  they  were  trying  to  adapt  a  gut- 
tural unmusical  French  to  the  whole  foreign 
legion  at  once.  Chocolate  costs  about  three 
francs  a  pound,  and  eating  apples  two  francs  a 
pound.  These  people  of  course  have  the  Scotch 
skun  a  mile  for  what  we  will  courteously  term, 
thrift. 

"The  road  leading  north  is  the  interesting 
thing.  The  lorries,  guns  and  horse  trains  go  by 
continually,  also  an  occasional  two  wheeled 
carrere  drawn  by  a  mule,  and  the  poor  foot-slog- 
ging fellows  bound  forward  to  the  lowest  circle 
of  mud.  It's  somehow  very  fascinating  to  watch 
that  highway. 

"It  rains  conscientiously  every  day  at  about 
four  o'clock,  and  if  the  shower  is  a  little  late  it 
makes  up  for  it  in  pattering  more  smartly.  This 
morning  a  battle-plane  flew  over  our  billet — not 
before  we  had  had  breakfast, — alas!  it  is  never 
before  breakfast  here.  After  you've  opened  one 
eye  in  the  black  dark  you  do  your  chores  and  gob- 


OCTOBER  219 

ble  your  food  with  no  interim, — but  somewhere 
along  at  about  a  normal  breakfast  time.  In  the 
distance  I  saw  a  lot  of  other — mosquitoes,  that's 
all  they  look  like,  you  know.  They  came  nearer 
and  there  were  bursts' of  smoke  and  one  dropped, 
— an  enemy  I  suppose.  It  was  like  watching  a 
battle  among  educated  fleas,  they  looked  so  little. 
See  how  hard  your  Tommy  is  trying  to  tell  what 
he  sees,  and  can't.  I  love  you." 

Well,  I  don't  suppose  any  one  ever  got  more 
satisfactory  letters  from  "Somewhere  in  France" 
or  so  full  of  local  color,  which  is  what  I  call  the 
"I  love  you"  parts. 

I  am  glad  he  isn't  in  Italy  or  in  anyway  con- 
cerned in  that  Italian  offensive.  Father  is  fret- 
ting about  it  as  if  it  were  happening  in  our  own 
back  yard,  or  should  I  say  tiled  court?  Thirty 
thousand  prisoners, — sixty  thousand  prisoners, 
eighty  thousand  prisoners!  Thank  Heaven  you 
can't  really  visualize  more  than  six  individuals  at 
once!  Father  Richardson  has  a  theory  that  in  a 
way  is  sort  of  comforting.  He  thinks  that  there 


220  OVER  HERE 

is  treason  in  the  Italian  lines,  that  it  is  propaganda 
that  has  won  a  bloodless  victory  and  that  those 
Italians  have  simply  surrendered  with  a  wink. 
He's  been  talking  with  men  just  back  from  the 
Italian  vicinity  and  Washington.  Father  of 
course  won't  listen  to  that.  All  men  are  heroes 
to  him  even  if  they  are  dagoes.  Personally  I 
don't  know  what  to  think.  I  would  think  what 
Tommy  thought  if  he  were  here. 

Eileen  has  gone.  I  flung  her  and  Lester  at 
each  other's  heads  to  no  avail.  She  could  have 
stood  him  after  a  while  when  age  had  mellowed 
them  both  and  the  cruel  war  was  over  and  done 
with,  and  Requiescating  in  Peacefulness.  He 
would  have  come  up  to  the  scratch  even  about 
the  war  if  he  had  some  woman  to  encourage  him 
at  first  hand ;  but  it  wasn't  to  be.  She  is  now  on 
the  high  seas  at  the  mercy  of  any  German  peri- 
scope that  comes  along,  concealed  in  a  fake  life- 
boat or  not.  I  told  her  that  she  couldn't  do  any- 
thing toward  propagating  the  race  if  she  didn't 
try  to  love  a  prospective  parent  of  it.  I  suppose 


OCTOBER  221 

you  can't  make  people  love  each  other  by  just 
working  it  out  in  your  own  head,  but  I  wish  I 
could  make  those  two.  Lester  is  a  living  reproach 
to  me. 

Peter  Ives  is  taking  up  aviation.     He'll  be 
going,  I  suppose. 

"Forty-nine  blue  bottles  were  hanging  on  a  wall, 
Forty-nine  blue  bottles  were  hanging  on  a  wall, 
A~nd  one  blue  bottle  fell  down  from  the  wall, 
And  forty-eight  blue  bottles  were  hanging  on  a 
wall." 

Soon  Obadiah  and  I  will  be  the  only  ones  left. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

NOVEMBER  AGAIN 

WOMEN  have  got  the  vote,  if  you  please. 
It  was  a  complete  surprise  to  me.  Of 
course,  I  am  a  most  ardent  suffragist, — but  I 
rather  dread  exercising  my  prerogatives  at  the 
polls,  without  Tommy  here  to  tell  me  what  they 
are.  However,  he'll  certainly  be  home  before  an- 
other November  and  by  that  time  we'll  be  wear- 
ing our  laurels  as  if  they  were  old  hair  ribbons. 
Mother  is  tremendously  pleased.  She  has  cer- 
tainly worked  hard  to  cause  this  effect. 

"Congratulations,  mother,"  I  said. 

"Now,  we've  got  to  fight  Washington,"  she 
said  wearily.  Sometimes  I  think  that  women 
overreach  themselves  by  this  attitude  of  grabbing 
everything  in  sight  and  then  trying  to  get  more 
in  addition,  especially  at  a  time  like  this,  but 
mother  says  that  it's  all  very  necessary.  Well, 

222 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  223 

she  ought  to  know.  She  has  been  one  longer  than 
I  have. 

Tammany  is  in.  /  don't  care  so  much.  There 
must  be  some  good  in  Tammany  Hall,  though 
every  one  but  Father  Richardson  says  it  is  un- 
speakable— but  Tommy  would  grieve.  He  was 
so  proud  of  New  York  after  it  got  cleaned  up  po- 
litically. I  was  getting  to  the  point  of  passing 
the  time  of  day  pleasantly  with  the  policemen 
myself.  I  shan't  take  it  for  granted  that  they 
are  worthy  of  these  amenities  under  the  new 
regime. 

We  are  getting  right  down  to  brass  tacks  in 
other  ways.  It  takes  three  cents  to  send  a  letter. 
We  are  a  good  deal  more  stringently  meatless  and 
wheatless  than  we  were,  and  quite  painfully 
sugarless.  We  are  going  to  be  coalless — more 
involuntarily  so,  and  Broadway  is  going  to  be 
lightless.  Gosh!  I  feel  as  if  we  were  moving 
right  up  to  the  lines.  It's  sort  of  dreary.  I  hate 
semi-demi  states  of  anything.  I'd  rather  have 
New  York  candlelit  entirely,  than  suddenly  to 
emerge  on  Broadway  and  find  it  unexpectedly 


224  OVER  HERE 

dark  where  formerly  there  have  been  fizzy-water 
signs  and  butterflies,  and  soldier  men  saluting. 
I  hate  to  be  surprised  by  the  absence  of  accus- 
tomed brilliance.  That's  not  patriotic,  but  it's 
very  hard  to  be  suddenly  dutifully  reconciled  to 
something  entirely  foreign  to  your  taste,  espe- 
cially if  it  has  been  sprung  on  you  without  warn- 
ing. Sometimes  when  we've  had  vegetable  meat 
loaf  on  a  Tuesday  when  I  hadn't  remembered 
our  weekly  meatlessness  I've  almost  howled  with 
vexatious  disappointment,  and  yet  I  wouldn't 
have  eaten  a  chop  for  a  king's  ransom.  Human 
beings  are  certainly  very  inconsistent  objects, — 
but  they're  awfully  human  all  the  time. 

Well,  my  life  is  more  of  a  problem  than  I 
ever  expected  any  life  of  mine  to  be.  Father  is 
losing  all  his  money  and  will  soon  be  businessless. 
Mother  refuses  to  face  the  music,  not  exactly  re- 
fuses, but  she's  constitutionally  incapable  of  look- 
ing a  personal  fact  in  the  face.  Father  refuses 
to  apply  for  help  to  Aunt  Evelyn — Roland's 
mother,  and  there  is  nobody  else.  C'est  la  guerre, 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  225 

as  Tommy  says.  I  don't  know  what  we  are  going 
to  do.  I  should  normally  have  gone  out  to  get  a 
job  at  this  juncture.  I  could  almost  live  on  what 
Tommy  sends,  but  I  gave  that  to  his  mother  and 
father.  Mother's  idea  is  that  I  ought  to  have 
married  Lester.  Father's  idea  is  that  he  ought  to 
jump  into  the  river.  My  idea  is  that  the  Lord 
will  provide,  and  if  at  first  you  don't  succeed  in 
getting  Him  to,  try,  try  again  at  some  other 
angle.  Hard  times,  Obadiah! 

Being  without  Tommy,  however,  is  my  real 
problem.  How  to  go  on  standing  it.  "I  need 
thee  every  hour,"  is  my  perpetual  song.  Tommy 
is  literally  my  other  half,  and  how  can  a  half  a 
thing  live  and  go  on  living  when  it's  severed  from 
itself?  I  asked  Doctor  Fitch  if  he  could  give  me 
something  to  help  me  keep  up  this  endurance  test, 
and  he  said,"No,"  that  life  consisted  of  bearing 
more  than  you  could  all  the  time,  and  getting  a 
great  deal  out  of  it. 

"You  don't  think  I've  reached  my  limit,  then, 
Doctor  ?"  I  said. 


226  OVER  HERE 

"You  never  will,  dear,"  he  said.  "You  are 
made  of  the  stuff  that  endures  beyond  endur- 
ance." 

"Do  you  think  that's  comforting?"  I  asked. 

"You  are  not  the  kind  of  woman  one  tries  to 
comfort,"  he  said,  "with  anything  but  the  truth." 

"You  don't  know  how  I  want  my  husband," 
I  said.  "I  don't  want  to  do  myself  any  harm 
with  it." 

"Cry  a  little,"  he  said,  holding  out  his  arms. 

"No,"  I  said. 

"Why  not?" 

"I  might  cry  too  hard." 

His  own  eyes  filled  with  tears.  He  is  very 
sweet  to  me,  but  apparently  he  doesn't  know. 
No  one  does.  Tommy! 

I  did,  however,  arrange  with  him  not  to  pay 
him  any  money  for  his  services.  That's  a  great 
load  from  my  mind.  The  nurses  and  things  can 
be  managed  somehow. 

"Will  you  do  this  for  the  war?"  I  said. 
"When  the  war  is  over  I  or  my  husband  will  pay 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  227 

you.  Just  at  present  we  can't  pay  anybody  any*- 
thing." 

"My  dear,"  he  said.    Oh !  he  is  sweet. 

More  letters  from  Tommy.  He  is  moving-  up 
to  the  front, — and  I  with  him.  He  has  been  very 
lucky  with  his  little  experience  to  get  into  the 
thick  of  things  at  once.  Lucky!  Yes,  I  believe 
that.  I  know  I've  got  to  get  this  thing  through 
my  head  once  for  all.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  have 
my  Tommy  fighting  over  there.  I  sent  him, — be- 
grudgingly,  but  I  sent  him.  I  endure  his  being 
there  for  his  sake  and  for  the  sake  of  ideas  and 
feelings  I  hardly  understand.  I  keep  telling  my- 
self that  I  have  done  more  than  enough — more 
than  I  can  endure.  In  my  soul  I  have  not  let 
him  go  yet.  I  know  that  now,  but  it  must  be 
done. 

In  France,  in  Italy,  in  England  they  speed 
their  men  on  their  way.  The  women  fight  the 
war.  Our  women  don't.  They  play  at  it  like 
mother,  or  they  make  their  sacrifices  as  I  have 
made  mine  with  something  held  back.  It  is  our 


228  OVER  HERE 

war.  What  I  am  trying  to  do  is  to  say  that  it  is 
my  war.  It  seems  a  funny  time  for  me  to  be 
trying  to  fix  this  up  in  my  mind,  but  you  can't 
pick  and  choose  times  for  such  things.  They 
come,  and  you  can't  dodge.  Only  you  know 
when  they  come,  whether  belated  or  premature. 
It's  just  as  Doctor  Fitch  says,  you  can't  ever 
stop  at  a  place  and  decide  to  call  for  help  and 
comfort.  You  have  to  go  on  higher  and  yet 
higher.  Tommy ! 

I  had  a  very  extraordinary  psychological  ex- 
perience the  other  day.  I  never  had  one  before. 
I  have  often  guessed  that  Tommy  has  been  think- 
ing of  me  at  a  given  moment,  but  it  has  only  been 
guessing.  I  was  sitting  by  the  window  looking 
down  into  the  park  and  thinking  of  ordinary 
things  like  how  much  right  I  had  to  do  knitting 
for  Obadiah  when  I  might  be  doing  real  soldier 
sweaters,  and  whether  or  not  it  would  be  bad  for 
me  to  cut  out  wheat  altogether,  when  some  secret 
thing  flashed  and  blinded  me,  and  I  knew  Tommy 
was  reading  my  letter  about  Obadiah.  I  knew  he 
was  sitting  somewhere  in  the  midst  of  his  billets 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  229 

and  batteries  and  ammunition  dumps  that  he 
writes  about,  and  reading  about  Obadiah.  I  have 
never  before  thought  you  could  know  these 
things.  I  have  heard  that  in  telepathy  you  could 
establish  spiritual  communication  with  those  you 
love, — and  now  I  have.  I  wish  such  minutes 
could  last. 

I  wonder  what  he  thinks.  Well,  I  rather 
know.  He  thinks  in  the  first  place  that  I  am  too 
young, — and  what  it  would  be  if  anything  went 
wrong  with  me.  He  blames  himself  for  marrying 
me,  and  then  for  going  away  and  leaving  me.  He 
wants  to  see  me  and  hold  me  in  his  arms,  where  I 
always  tell  him  that  I  feel  so  certain  that  I  am 
absolutely  safe.  And  then  over  all  of  this — he  is 
glad,  and  thinks  that  I  am  a  sport  and  worthy  to 
be  the  mother  of  his  child,  and  he  wouldn't  have 
any  of  it  any  different.  Even  my  sending  him 
away  without  telling  him. 

It  is  a  great  thing  to  know  how  the  other  per- 
son's mind  works  when  there  is  an  ocean  between 
you.  If  I  didn't  know  how  he  was  due  to  feel 
when  he  got  that  letter,  there  wouldn't  have  been 


230  OVER  HERE 

any  letter.  There  wouldn't  have  been  any  me — 
for  that  matter.  I  should  have  gracefully  ex- 
pired of  love  and  longing  and  weary  leagues  of 
briny  hostile  waters  stretching  between  us. 

I  should  feel  a  lot  more  comfortable  in  my 
mind  if  the  Germans  were  not  collecting  dagoes 
at  the  rapid  rate  they  are.  The  war  has  never 
looked  worse,  which  is  discouraging  for  me  who 
have  recently  elected  to  fight  it  all  by  myself. 
The  Italian  drive  isn't  a  drive,  it's  a  walk-over.  If 
the  Italians  are  not  flinging  themselves  into  the 
embrace  of  the  Prussians  I  don't  know  what  i's 
happening.  If  it  weren't  for  General  Byng — 
Bing  by  name  and  Bing  by  nature — and  the 
success  of  the  tanks  on  the  Hindenburg  line  I 
think  I  should  by  now  be  doing  the  war  maps  up 
into  nice  little  pellets  and  eating  them. 

The  Bolsheviki  have  entered  the  Russian 
arena,  to  the  disgust  of  Lester,  who  thinks  they 
are  autocratic  and  misinformed.  I  don't  know 
what  I  think  about  them.  I'm  too  busy  to  care 
what  happens  to  Russia — if  she  doesn't  make  a 
separate  peace.  If  she  does  I'm  going  down  to 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  231: 

Greenwich  Village  and  set  fire  to  it.  A  woman 
army  with  bobbed  hair — indeed! 

Marcella  Harcourt  and  I  have  had  a  talk.  I've. 
rather  dodged  Marcella  for  reasons  connected 
with  the  cowardliness  of  my  disposition,  but  I've 
been  feeling  so  much  holier  lately  that  I  sent  for 
her  and  learned  over  again  that  easily  forgotten 
lesson  that  we  ought  to  brace  up  to  our  obli- 
gations however  we  have  acquired  them. 

"I'm  so  glad,  Beth,"  she  said,  referring  to 
Obadiah. 

"I'm  glad  you're  glad,  Marcella,"  I  said. 
"Have  a  drink  of  malted  milk,"  which  was  the 
innocuous  fluid  I  was  at  that  moment  indulg- 
ing in. 

"No,"  she  said,  and  began  to  cry.  "I'll  go 
away,"  she  added  hastily.  "This  will  be  bad  for 
you.  I  was  so  sure  I  could  control  myself." 

"Why  should  you?"  I  asked. 

"Why  shouldn't  I?"  she  retorted. 

"Oh,  I'm  all  right,"  I  said,  "fit  as  a  fiddle, 
though  why  a  fiddle  should  be  chosen  for  such  a 
figure  of  speech  I  don't  know,  because  they're 


232  OVER  HERE 

always  out  of  order.  Mine  was  when  I  played 
one." 

"You're  an  extremely  modest  girl,  Elizabeth," 
Marcella  said.  "You  have  so  many  accomplish- 
ments that  one  never  even  hears  of." 

"Nor  me — any  more,"  I  said.  "Music  hath 
charms  to  soothe  the  savage  beast,  but  I  never 
make  any." 

"Nobody  keeps  up  their  practise  now.  I 
haven't  heard  any  music  for  months." 

"You  don't  think  I  could  teach  anything  in 
the  school  you're  at?"  I  said.  "I  mean,  by  and 
by." 

"I  don't  think  you  are  especially  fitted  for 
teaching,  do  you  ?"  she  said  in  pure  astonishment. 

"No,  I  don't,"  I  said,  "but  I  don't  want  to 
leave  any  avenue  unturned.  I  think  my  talent  lies 
more  along  the  lines  of  street-car  conducting." 

"I  saw  a  woman  conductor  on  Broadway  to- 
day," she  said,  "and  she  was  one  of  the  most 
charmingly  pretty  girls  I  have  ever  seen." 

"I  saw  one  yesterday,"  I  said,  "and  she 
looked  like  a  hippopotamus." 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  233 

"They  do  vary,"  Marcella  agreed. 

"Marcella,"  I  said,  coming  out  with  what  was 
in  my  mind,  "I  don't  see  how  you  live  at  all." 

"I  get  on  better  than  you'd  think,"  she  said. 
"My  nerves  give  out,  but  my  spirit  doesn't — 
often." 

"Are  you  reconciled?"  I  said.  "You  seem  to 
care  what's  happening  in  the  world  just  the 
same." 

"Don't  you?"  she  said. 

"Why,  yes,  but  I — I  haven't  met  with  a  loss." 

Marcella  looked  at  me  a  little  pityingly.  I 
could  see  what  was  in  her  mind,  and  I  was  very 
sorry  for  her.  She  thinks  every  one's  fate  is 
likely  to  be  like  hers.  Poor  dear!  If  she  had 
married  her  man  and  then  had  lost  him,  her  life 
would  be  harder  yet. 

"I  am  hurt,"  she  said,  "but  I  am  not  so  un- 
happy as  you  think  I  am." 

"How  have  you  doped  it  out  ?"  I  said. 

She  smiled  at  me  queerly. 

"I  am  sustained,"  she  said,  "by  the  war  itself. 
You  wouldn't  understand.  I  paraphrase  Scripture 


234  OVER  HERE 

and  say  'The  war  gives  and  the  war  takes  away.' ' 
She's  English  descent,  that's  why  she  talks  like 
that. 

"What  has  the  war  given  you?"  I  asked 
incredulously. 

"The  opportunity  to  give — all  I  had,"  she 
said.  "Oh!  it  isn't  that  Clay  and  I  were  really 
lovers,  or  that  I  sent  him  forth  to  fight.  It's 
only  that  I've  had  a  chance  to  share  what's  going 
on  in  the  world  by — by  acquiescing  in  the  common 
experience.  If  I  held  out  against  what's  hap- 
pened— oh !  you  couldn't  understand." 

"But  I  do,"  I  said. 

"If  I  refused  to  'carry  on,'  I  should  die  of  the 
trouble  in  my  heart,  presently.  If  I  accept  it  and 
go  on  fighting  in  spirit  for  what  he  was  fighting 
for — then  it's  quite  all  right." 

Poor  Marcella  can't  even  go  across  to  the 
other  side,  for  she  has  to  make  money  by  her 
teaching  to  support  an  invalid  aunt  in  Canada. 
All  she  can  do  is  to  give  all  her  spare  time  to  war 
activities  over  here, — "doing  her  bit,"  she  calls 
it,  quite  oblivious  to  the  fact  that  those  words 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  235 

have  become  loathsomely  obsolete  the  way  I  trust 
the  expression  camouflage  is  going  to  be  in  an- 
other month  or  two. 

"Marcella,"  I  said  earnestly,  "angels  could  do 
no  more,  nor  'Ladies  from  Hell'  " — being  Ca- 
nadian she  understood  the  allusion,  of  course — 
"in  a  front-line  trench  than  you  are  doing  and 
thinking  and  feeling.  It's  that  kind  of  attitude 
among  women  and  civilians  that  will  win  the 
war." 

In  my  life,  and  I  suppose  in  many  others,  the 
most  trivial  conditions  and  circumstances  have  a 
way  of  repeating  themselves.  The  last  time  Mar- 
cella came  to  see  me  she  was  followed  by  the  gen- 
eral appearance  of  the  bunch,  and  this  time  they 
came  in  the  same  way  the  minute  the  door  closed 
upon  her.  There  were  gaps  where  Roland  and 
Peter  Ives  had  been,  and  also  Eileen,  but  Rob 
Came  and  my  delightful  sister  by  marriage  failed 
to  cast  her  enveloping  shadow  over  the  proceed- 
ings, but  otherwise  it  was  just  the  same. 

Billy  Douglas  was  wearing  the  only  really 
good-looking  tailored  suit  I  have  seen  since  the 


236  OVER  HERE 

war  broke  out — six  dollars  and  a  half  a  yard, — 
taupe  in  color,  and  Dolly  Grainger  was  done  up  in 
the  Salvation  Army  style  of  outdoor  clothing  that 
she  affects.  Her  favorite  song  being  "They  never 
proceed  to  follow  that  light,  but  they  always  fol- 
low me,"  out  of  the  recent  revival  of  The  Belle  of 
New  York,  where  she  got  the  idea  of  this  demure 
dressing.  Every  one  who  doesn't  know  her  likes 
her  in  them.  She  was  carrying  a  fifty  dollar 
knitting  bag,  but  the  knitting  in  it  wasn't  so 
important,  being  a  sweater  for  herself. 

Lester  brought  his  pussy-footed  friend  with 
him.  We  had  a  tea  parade  to  the  kitchen.  We've 
had  to  let  Bessie  go,  so  I  mostly  make  the  tea 
myself.  Everything  in  the  trenches  is  parades 
according  to  Tommy ;  the  men  have  to  line  up  and 
have  them  for  everything  they  do,  baths  and 
all,  eternally,  like  fire  drills  in  school,  you 
know. 

"I'm  going  for  my  examination  to-morrow," 
Pussy- foot  said  when  the  object  of  our  expedition 
was  accomplished,  and  we  had  tea  spread  before 

U9. 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  237 

"I  should  think  you'd  be  ashamed,  Lester," 
Billy  Douglas  said,  scrunching  her  lemon  against 
the  side  of  her  cup. 

"I'm  not,"  Lester  said  defiantly.  "I!ll  show 
you  that  I'm  not,  later." 

"It  takes  a  braver  man  to  resist  the  draft  than 
it  does  to  accept  it,  doesn't  it,  Lester?"  Rob 
Douglas  inquired. 

"It  may,"  Lester  said  modestly. 
"The  French  morale  is  getting  terribly  weak- 
ened," Dolly  chimed  in.   "Everybody  wants  peace 
except  the  English,  really." 

"I  don't  think  that  is  true,"  Lester  said. 
"Oh !  it  is.    Nobody  can  hold  out  for  another 
winter  except  the  Germans.     All   the  statistics 
show  that." 

"What  would  you  suggest  then?"  Rob  in- 
quired satirically.  "Letting  the  Germans  have  it 
all  their  own  way?" 

"They  are  doing  that  anyway,"  Dolly  said. 
"Look  at  the  Italian  situation." 
"I  am  not  so  sure." 
"They  say  that  the  men  at  our  own  camps  are 


238  OVER  HERE 

positively  suffering  from  privations  and  misman- 
agement. The  amount  of  graft  going  on  is 
simply  stupendous,  you  know." 

There  was  a  chorus  of  low  growls. 

"You'd  better  not  go  around  talking  like 
that,"  Rob  said.  "Those  aren't  specially  popular 
sentiments  with  good  citizens,  nowadays.  Be- 
sides they  are  gross  exaggerations  of  the  facts." 

"You  can't  talk,"  flashed  back  Dolly;  "you 
aren't  in  a  position  to  criticize  the  people  who  are 
criticizing  the  government.  You  belong  to  the 
Slacker  regiment,  anyway." 

"Not  any  longer,  Dolly,"  Billy  contributed, 
"he's  in.  This  is  the  last  time  you'll  see  him  in 
civilian  attire." 

"Billy !"  we  all  exclaimed. 

"I  couldn't  stand  the  strain,"  she  said,  "all 
the  pretty  uniforms  and  he  not  in  one.  Of  course, 
it  was  bound  to  come  anyway." 

Rob  looked  at  her  with  the  adoring  look  of 
one  who  is  at  last  understood  by  those  whom  he 
cherishes.  It  was  bound  to  come,  of  course,  but 
something  tells  me  that  Billy  got  in  line  of  her 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  239 

own  accord  notwithstanding.  That  doesn't  mean 
that  she  won't  be  the  most  harum-scarum  kind  of 
a  grass  war-widow,  but  it  does  mean  she's  joined 
the  fraternity  of  those  who  lay  their  voluntary 
sacrifices  on  the  altar. 

We  talked  on  endlessly.  Lester  lingered  a 
little  after  every  one  had  gone,  but  about  all  he 
did  was  to  take  my  hand  and  kiss  it,  and  say  I 
looked  unearthy. 

"You  mean  unearthly,  don't  you,  Lester?"  I 
said. 

"It  doesn't  make  any  difference  what  I  mean," 
he  said.  "Oh!  isn't  there  anything  I  can  do  for 
you?" 

"Get  into  this  war  before  you  are  kicked  in." 

"I  will,"  he  said. 

"Right"  I  said.   "Not  because  of  me." 

"You  make  it  terribly  hard,"  he  groaned. 

"I  want  to,"  I  said. 

"They  tell  me,"  he  said,  "that  women  some- 
times— suffer  awfully." 

"They  tell  me,"  I  said,  "that  men  who  resist 
the  draft  suffer  more,  from  various  causes." 


240  OVER  HERE 

"I  love  you,  Elizabeth/'  he  groaned. 

"Now  see  here,  Lester,"  I  said,  "I  love  you 
in  a  kind  of  way.  Enough  so  you're  distressing 
me  to  death." 

Which  of  course  made  him  groan  the  harder. 

"Come  here,"  I  said,  "and  kiss  my  forehead. 
Tommy  won't  mind  at  all,  but  don't  tell  me  that 
you  love  me  any  more  than  you  can  help.  You 
know  as  well  as  I  do  that  we  oughtn't  to  say 
those  things."  I  said  we  not  to  appear  to  be  too 
severe  about  it. 

After  every  one  had  gone  and  I  was  in  my 
bed  some  of  the  conversation  we  had  had  came 
back  to  me.  I  had  hardly  noticed  it  at  the  time, 
but  Pussy- foot  had  asked  Rob  Douglas  in  some 
connection  or  other  how  Americans  were  notified . 
when  any  of  their  relatives  were  killed  in  France, 
and  Rob  had  said,  "By  cable  from  the  War  De- 
partment," which  I  knew  already,  of  course.  Then 
he  said: 

"I  suppose  the  next  of  kin  of  the  first  Ameri- 
cans to  be  victims  will  be  interviewed  by  our 
enterprising  yellow  journals." 


NOVEMBER  AGAIN  241 

I  crawled  out  of  my  bed  and  knocked  on  my 
father's  door,  but  he  was  sleeping  and  did  not 
hear  me. 

At  breakfast  the  next  morning  father  came 
in  and  stood  by  my  chair  the  same  way  that  he 
had  done  in  my  dream.  In  his  hand  was  the 
cable  I  dreamed  I  received.  His  face  was  ter- 
rible. 

"It's  all  right,  father,"  I  said,  "I  dreamed  it 
all  out.  The  cable  says  November  fifteenth. 
I've  got  a  letter  in  my  hand  from  him  dated  the 
seventeenth.  I  dreamed  all  this,  and  he  wasn't 
dead  in  my  dream." 

Later:  They  verified  it.  It  was  November 
twentieth  that  he  died. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   NEW   YEAR 

I  HAVE  not  screamed  yet.  When  you  meet 
with  a  shock  of  great  trouble  the  first  thing  you 
want  to  do  is  to  scream  and  to  keep  on  scream- 
ing, but  on  account  of  Obadiah  I  ought  not  to. 
When  he  comes  I  can.  I  shall  scream  before  I 
die.  Of  course,  I  expect  to  die.  To  all  intents 
and  purposes  I  am  dead  already.  A'  woman  is, 
when  her  husband  dies. 

Tommy  was  killed  by  shell  fire.  He  never 
got  to  the  front-of-the-front,  that  he  was 
always  writing  about.  He  was  just  walking  along 
and  a  stray  shell  exploded  near  him,  and  killed 
him.  It  seems  such  a  matter-of-fact  thing.  It 
might  happen  to  anybody,  they  tell  me.  It  did 
happen  to  Tommy.  I  wish  he  had  gone  "Over 
the  Top"  into  "No  Man's  Land"  once,  so  he 
might  have  known  that  he  had  done  it.  Well, 
242 


THE  NEW  YEAR  243 

he  is  in  "No  Man's  Land"  now,  and  soon  I  shall 
be  with  him.  I  know  there  is  a  Somewhere  Be- 
yond that  we  can  go  to  together.  I  didn't  know 
before.  I  said  my  prayers  doubtfully,  wondering 
just  who  I  was  talking  to,  and  why.  "God,  if 
there  be  a  God,"  I  said.  There  is  a  God.  He  has 
not  been  very  kind  to  me,  but  He's  there,  and  He 
has  a  Heaven  somewhere.  Even  i'f  it's  only  a 
dim  sort  of  a  rest-room  where  people  can  lie 
down  and  die  again  in  comparative  peace.  I 
certainly  want  to  get  out  of  this  world.  I  have 
borne  more  than  I  can  here. 

Great  trouble  is  different  from  anything  you 
imagine  it,  though.  You  think  of  it  as  unthink- 
able and  all  wrong,  but  it  is  rather  natural  than 
anything  else.  It  i's  the  end  of  you,  perhaps,  but 
it  isn't  the  end  of  everything.  I  have  never  been 
able  to  think  of  the  crucifixion  from  any  angle, 
I  found  it  so  distressing.  Now  I  understand  it 
better.  Christ  was  glad  to  die,  and  He  could  get 
through  it  somehow,  though  they  crucified  Him. 

The  worst  thing  is  the  way  the  world  swirls 
on  around  you,  leaving  you  in  a  little  island  of 


244  OVER  HERE 

anguish  alone  in  the  middle  of  it,  but  without 
being  able  to  get  away.  I  sit  still  in  my  black 
dress  and  people  go  on  living  and  talking  and 
even  laughing  all  about  me.  I  laugh,  too,  when 
I  can,  because  it  isn't  a  good  idea  to  spread  your 
trouble  about  you  in  times  like  these ;  but  it  comes 
from  a  long  distance.  Everything  comes  from  a 
long  distance  that  one  does  or  says,  but  the  peo- 
ple who  haven't  had  trouble  talk  off  the  surface. 
I  used  to.  It  is  natural  to. 

I  have  to  comfort  my  friends  who  are  suffer- 
ing for  me,  of  course.  Poor  Lester  is  in  a  ter- 
rible state  of  mind,  and  Marcella.  I  try  not  to  see 
Marcella.  She  thinks  our  trouble  should  bring  us 
nearer  together,  but  it  only  brings  her  nearer 
me.  Poor  girl !  Poor  girl ! 

Father  has  been  kicked  out  of  his  firm  by 
his  two  partners.  I  never  thought  they  were 
any  good,  either  of  them,  though  father  swore 
by  them.  He  has  taken  a  position  in  a  broker's 
office,  and  auntie  has  paid  the  rent  of  our  apart- 
ment for  a  year,  and  given  mother  a  sum  of 
money.  My  father  certainly  needs  me.  He  is 


THE  NEW  .YEAR  245 

the  only  thing  I  really  regret  leaving,  or  feel 
guilty  about.  The  others  can  manage.  Poor 
mother  has  suffered  for  me,  but  she  is  already 
beginning  to  hope  that  I  will  start  life  again  on 
the  same  old  basis,  and  bring  her — luck. 

Lester  looks  a  good  deal  older  and  thinner. 

"I  don't  believe  you  are  eating  enough,  Les- 
ter," I  said. 

"How  can  I?"  he  said. 

"I  am,"  I  said  to  encourage  him. 

"After  you — after  you — when  you  need  it, 

• 

will  you  let  me  help?"  he  begged. 

"Lester,"  I  said,  "these  things  don't  change 
the  course  of  things.  Trouble  only  means  you 
must  go  on  living  the  same  way,  and  meet  the 
same  obligations  better,  if  you  can." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  he  said. 

"Nothing." 

"You'll  have  to  do  something.  You'll  have 
another  to — support." 

"That's  all  that  worries  me,"  I  said.  "But 
I  think  mother  will  be  fine  for  a  boy.  Better 
perhaps  than  she  was  for  a  girl." 


246  OVER  HERE 

"You'll  be  able  to  have  your  way  with  him— • 
her — it,  I  suppose!" 

"Him." 

"But  how  can  you  tell?" 

"I  know." 

"You  can't  know,  can  you?" 

"You  can't,  but  I  do." 

"Shall  I  be  allowed  to  do  something  for  him?" 

"Lester,"  I  said,  "now  don't  say  anything  or 
work  yourself  up  in  any  way,  but  if — if  anything 
happens  to  me  and  you  still  want  to  and  it  can 
be  arranged  you  can  settle  some  money  on  him." 

"Thank  you,"  Lester  said,  trembling.  "Must 
you  put  it  that  way — if — if — " 

"Yes,  I  must,"  I  said. 

He  quivered,  but  braced  up  after  a  while. 

"If  it's  the  other  sex—"  he  said,  "may  I 
be  permitted  just  the  same?" 

"It  won't  be,  but  you  may,"  I  said. 

"If  anything  happens  to  you,"  he  said,  "some- 
thing will  happen  to  me,  too." 

"No,  Lester,"  I  said  firmly.     "You  mustn't 


THE  NEW  YEAR  247 

feel  that  way.  If  you  died  just  because  I  did  I 
should  never  have  any  respect  for  you  again." 

"I  shouldn't  kill  myself,"  he  said,  "I  just 
couldn't  live." 

"Yes,  you  could,  Lester,"  I  said,  "one  can 
always  live." 

I  can't,  of  course,  but  any  one  else  can  by 
just  exerting  a  little  more  will  power.  I  shall  be 
sorry  to  leave  Lester.  I  think  some  women  could 
make  quite  a  boy  out  of  him. 

I  didn't  notice  what  was  going  on  in  the 
world  for  a  while.  I  didn't  pay  any  attention 
to  my  war,  but  when  I  began  to  I  was  glad  to 
see  everything  looking  brighter.  The  Bol- 
sheviki  are  perhaps  not  going  to  make  a  separate 
peace.  This  may  be  because  Germany  doesn't 
want  them  to.  For  one  thing  Russia  is  full  of 
socialists  and  anarchists,  and  if  they  overflow 
into  Germany  their  propaganda,  which  is  deadly 
serious  and  very  much  believed  by  all  of  them, 
might  do  a  great  harm  to  the  Prussian  ideals  and 
deplete  even  more  their  flagging  faith  in  their 


248  OVER  HERE 

ruler's  iron  hand.  For  another  thing  Germany 
may  not  want  that  move  to  be  made  in  the  game, 
just  at  present.  I  wouldn't  trust  them,  and 
father  says  he  wouldn't  either.  On  the  other 
fronts  things  look  better. 

One  thing  that  brought  me  out  of  my  trouble 
was  the  suffering  of  the  poor  during  the  extreme 
cold  weather  we  have  been  having.  The  New 
Year  came  in  with  weather  twenty  below  zero, 
and  a  coal  famine.  There  were  days  we  didn't 
have  any  fire  in  our  building  except  a  grate  fire, 
and  our  gas  pipes  froze  so  we  couldn't  cook  on 
the  range.  There  hasn't  been  anything  like  the 
actual  cold  in  New  York  for  years.  The  poor 
people  stood  for  hours  in  the  coal  line  to  get  a 
little  sack  full  of  the  precious  mineral  that  they 
could  carry  home  on  their  backs.  At  first,  it 
seemed  more  than  I  could  bear,  and  then  I  began 
to  get  interested  in  what  Lester  and  his  mother 
were  doing.  They  just  bought  up  blankets  and 
warm  clothing  and  distributed  them  with  a  little 
money  to  the  people  in  these  lines.  Lester  says 
that  he  believes  only  in  organized  charity,  but 


THE  NEW  YEAR  249 

as  I  pointed  out  to  him,  you  can't  organize  dire 
extremity  of  this  sort. 

I  felt  at  first  as  if  I  ought  not  to  have  all 
these  additional  things  to  endure,  but  I  got  to  see 
that  there  couldn't  be  any  special  dispensation 
for  me,  who  am  only  one  of  the  suffering  people 
in  the  world.  I  can  not  go  very  deeply  into  causes 
and  effects  just  now,  but  I  am  not  in  any  state 
of  rebellion.  I  would  not  have  things  any  differ- 
ent, except  a  few  of  my  last  letters  to  Tommy. 
I  didn't  put  any  kisses  in  the  very  last  letters  that 
went  to  him.  I  didn't  say  I  loved  him.  I  was 
afraid  of  the  censor.  I  wake  in  the  night  shiver- 
ing and  shivering  to  think  of  these  omissions. 
'Did  he  notice  them?  Did  he  say  in  his  heart, 
"This  letter  is  not  so  nice  as  the  letter  before 
last.  Maybe  she  is  getting  reconciled  to  our  part- 
ing?" Did  he  turn  a  page  where  it  was  marked 
"Over"  and  just  find  some  trivial  little  thing 
about  my  new  sports  stockings  or  father's  grow- 
ing balder,  when  he  was  looking  for  a  love 
message  ? 

"If  only  I  hadn't  let  him  go,"  was  all  I  could 


250  OVER  HERE 

think  of  at  first,  but  I  see  now  he  had  to  go. 
He  wanted  to  go.  He  would  not  have  been 
satisfied  if  he  hadn't!  Besides,  other  men  go. 
When  he  went  I  did  not  think  he  could  be  killed, 
and  so  I  was  willing  that  he  should  take  his 
charmed  life  over  there  among  the  others  whose 
lives  were  not  charmed.  I  was  willing  that  they 
should  be  killed  and  not  he.  Now  I  have  had 
to  have  him  killed.  He  is  just  one  of  the  rest, 
and  he  always  was.  That  lesson  I  have  had  to 
learn.  That  he  and  I  are  like  the  others — only 
more  unfortunate  than  some  of  them,  so  far. 
Well,  I  say  to  myself,  what  is  the  meaning  of  it? 
Sacrifice — and  what  is  that?  C'est  la  guerre! 
If  the  war  had  to  be,  all  these  things  had  to  be. 
Tommy  had  to  die.  I  had  to  bear  it.  It  was  our 
war.  Just  as  Obadiah  is  going  to  be  our  child. 
It  will  be  funny  not  to  be  in  the  world  at  all. 
I  am  so  used  to  it  now.  Not  to  wake  in  the 
morning  and  see  the  window-pane  frosted  over 
and  breathe  in  deep  breaths  of  morning  air.  Not  to 
get  into  my  blue  mules  and  slam  the  window 
down.  Not  to  smell  the  crisp  smell  of  breakfast 


THE  NEW  YEAR  251 

toast.  Not  to  look  down  into  the  park  or  see 
any  more  sunsets,  or  ever  get  on  a  horse  again. 

I  wonder  what  Obadiah  will  be  like.  Perhaps 
I  shan't  die  until  I  have  really  had  a  look  at 
him.  Little  new  babies  don't  vary  much. 
I  can't  tell  whether  he  looks  like  Tommy  or  not 
because  he  won't  look  like  anybody  at  first.  I 
never  expected  Tommy  to  be  here  to  greet  him. 
I  shall  try  to  pretend  for  those  first  minutes  that 
he  is  here.  Maybe  he  will  be.  He  may  come 
to  get  me. 

I  thought  last  night  he  was  standing  in  the 
hall.  There  was  a  place  there  just  where  the 
jog  comes  that  I  kept  feeling  was  the  focus 
of  something.  I  can't  explain  it,  but  it  was  like 
a  light  that  you  can't  see,  concentrated  on  one 
spot.  Like  a  presence  trying  to  be  a  presence. 
I  kept  feeling  drawn  to  it,  and  yet  I  could  not 
move  toward  it.  It  might  have  been  some  part 
of  Tommy  trying  to  get  itself  expressed.  I  don't 
know  what  it  was,  but  it  comforted  me. 

Doctor  Fitch  has  appeared.     Also  the  nurse. 


252  OVER  HERE 

They  tell  me  that  I  must  not  be  afraid.  What 
have  I  to  be  afraid  of  ? — I  keep  laughing  at  them 
to  show  them  that  they  need  not  be  afraid  for  me. 
Poor  mother  is  unhappy  and  keeps  saying  that 
it  ought  not  to  be  so  hard  for  women  to  bear 
children.  Why  shouldn't  it  be  hard  ?  Is  any  part 
of  life  easy?  If  I  have  lived  a  minute  after  I 
knew  that  I  had  no  longer  a  husband  i'n  the  world 
can't  I  live  through  bringing  my  child  into  it? 

I  have  been  out  of  the  room  and  taken  father 
in  my  arms. 

"Daddy,  dear,"  I  said,  "please  don't  mind. 
I  don't  mind  the  suffering." 

"You  don't  know  what  it  is." 

I  don't  know  what  it  is,  but  I  do  know  that 
whatever  it  is  it  is  going  to  be  a  relief.  It's  just 
going  to  be  a  physical  fight.  When  any  one  has 
borne  the  other  thing  as  long  as  I  have  it  helps 
to  have  a  struggle  on  that  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  mind.  Tommy  died  instantly,  I  am  glad  to 
say.  He  didn't  have  to  know  he  was  dying  or 
to  suffer.  He  hated  physical  pain  much  worse 
than  I  do. 


THE  NEW  YEAR  253 

All  kinds  of  funny  things  keep  coming  into 
my  mind,  though.  There  is  that  story  the  girls 
always  told  with  a  lisp  at  school  about  "the  tall 
dark  stranger  coming  near-wer  and  near-wer  and 
near-wer."  Obadiah  is  coming  "near-wer  and 
near-wer"  all  the  time.  So  also  is  the  dreadful 
deadly  pain. 

Doctor  Fitch  and  the  nurse  talk  me  over  quite 
technically.  The  nurse  has  outstanding  teeth  like 

tombstones. 

"I  don't  like  you,"  I  said  to  her  quite  sud- 
denly, "are  there  any  more  at  home  like  you?" 
I  don't  understand  what  made  me  say  such  a 
thing. 

She  looked  at  me  quietly  with  tears  in  her 
eyes. 

"I'll  go  away,"  she  said,  "and  Doctor  Fitch 
will  send  you  some  one  you  like  better." 

"Oh!  I  do  like  you  now,"  I  said.  "I  hadn't 
seen  what  nice  eyes  you  have.  I  am  inclined  to 
be  unreasonable." 

"Be  as  unreasonable  as  you  like,  my  lamb," 
she  said. 


254  OVER  HERE 

"Did  you  know  my  husband  died?"  I  said 
to  her.  "Curious,  wasn't  it?" 

Every  one  tries  so  much.  I  can't  under- 
stand it. 

Doctor  Fitch  keeps  me  walking  and  walking 
all  over  the  house. 

I  don't  think  I  can  walk  any  longer. 

I  will,  if  I  must. 

I  think  I  am  near  death  now.  It  will  be  nice 
and  alleviating  to  die. 

Tommy!  Tommy!  Tommy! 


CHAPTER  XV 

OB  ADI  AH 

I  CAME  to  with  a  jolt  in  time  to  hear  a  woman 
shrieking— -who  turned  out  to  be  myself.  Doc- 
tor Fitch  bent  over  me  soothingly. 

"I  didn't  die,"  I  said,  "but  I  shall  soon." 

"You  are  not  going  to  die,"  he  said. 

"But  I  want  to,"  I  said. 

"No." 

"Yes." 

Later  I  begged  him,  "Please." 

"You  won't  want  to  when  you  see  your  baby." 

"Hello,  Obadiah!"  I  said,  when  that  young 
gentleman  appeared.  He  welcomed  me  with  a 
sweet  sneeze.  He  looked  like  a  fat  old 
gentleman  in  a  way,  and  in  another  way  he  looked 
like  nobody  but  my  own  baby.  "Give  him  to  me," 
I  said. 

255 


256  OVER  HERE 

It  is  very  remarkable  to  have  your  baby  in 
your  arms  for  the  first  time. 

"Tommy,"  I  said,  "this  is  our  baby." 

Doctor  Fitch  cries  more  than  I  have  ever 
imagined  a  doctor  could,  but  I  was  too  weak  to 
explain  to  him  that  I  was  not  delirious,  only  pre- 
tending. I  was  delirious,  of  course,  during  the 
last  part  of  the  proceedings. 

"Do  you  want  to  see  your  mother?"  I  didn't 
especially  but  I  said  that  I  would  be  pleas'ed  to. 

"I  am  a  mother,"  I  said,  "isn't  it  funny,  Doc- 
tor Fitch?" 

Father  and  mother  and  Mother  Richardson 
came  in  on  tiptoe.  They  were  a  washed-out- 
looking  bunch.  I  didn't  blame  Obadiah  for  snug- 
gling down  close  to  me  and  refusing  to  be 
interested  in  them. 

"Show  him  to  Father  Richardson,"  I  said. 
"Tell  him  that  he  is  Thomas  third."  Queer  what 
things  you  can  and  can't  say  without  crying. 

They  let  Lester  come  to  see  me  when  Obadiah 
was  a  week  old.  He  was  in  a  khaki  uniform. 


OBADIAH  257 

"Why,  Lester!"  I  said. 

"I've  been  converted,"  he  said. 

"Who  converted  you?" 

"You  did,"  he  blurted  out  "I  thought  if  you 
could  lose  your  husband  and  have  this  baby  and 
live — all  for  the  war,  that  I  could  give  it  all  I've 
got,  which  is  only  myself  after  all." 

"Good  boy,"  I  said. 

"That  time  you  said  to  me  that  one  could 
always  live  I  got  to  thinking.  I  thought  if  you 
could  say  so  I  could.  Then  I  went  over  the 
facts  about  this  war,  and  I  gradually  changed  my 
ideals.  After  all,  it's  a  big  thing  to  give  your 
life  for  democracy,  even  though  you  may  be  mis- 
taken in  so  doing." 

"But  it  isn't  being  mistaken,  Lester,"  I  said; 
"the  war  is  a  thing  we've  got  to  get  through  with 
before  we  can  ever'be  safe  and  comfortable  again. 
Tommy  said  it  was  God  and  the  devil  fighting 
for  supremacy.  It  is  our  duty  to  throw  our 
strength  into  it,  on  the  right  side." 

"If  you  can  live  at  all,  I  can  fight  for  the  thing 
you're  living  for,"  Lester  said  positively. 


258  OVER  HERE 

"The  point  is,  Lester,"  I  confessed  after  a 
pause,  "that  I  wasn't  going  to  live.  I  was  going 
to  die." 

"Well,"  Lester  said  after  digesting  this,  "it 
makes  a  great  difference  to  me  that  you  changed 
your  mind." 

"But  don't  you  go  thinking  that  I  had  the 
spunk  to  go  on  with.  For  quite  a  while  I  didn't 
have  it." 

"What  changed  you?" 

"Obadiah,"  I  said  briefly. 

"Are  you  so  fond  of  him  ?" 

"It  isn't  altogether  that." 

"What  is  it  then?" 

"I  want  to  raise  my  boy  to  be  a  soldier,"  I 
said. 

I  can't  get  my  Tommy  over  here  until  after 
the  war  the  government  has  decided.  That's 
another  reason  for  me  to  live.  Also,  I  got 
a  belated  letter  from  him  about  Obadiah,  dated 
the  day  before  he  died.  He  isn't  dead  in  the 
way  I  thought  he  was.  The  man  who  could 


OBADIAH  259 

write  that  letter  isn't  dead.  He  isn't  even  away. 
He  is  here  by  my  side.  He  was  in  every  breath 
I  drew,  and  he  is  still  breathing  through  me. 

Always,  always  after  I  have  forgotten  the 
little  ways  he  looked  and  the  little  words  he 
spoke — I  have  forgotten  some  of  them  already 
in  spite  of  the  agonized  way  I  try  to  hold  on  to 
them  in  my  mind, — the  real  essence  of  him  will 
be  surviving  as  a  part  of  me  and  of  our  child. 
There  is  no  death. 

I  am  going  to  raise  Obadiah  to  be  a  soldier. 


THE    END 


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